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NORMAh 

Institute 
Reader # 




By WASSON & RAMSEY 



CRANE & CO., P6B12ISHERS 
TOPEKA 





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THE 



NORMAL 



Institute Header 



TEACHEBS' INSTITUTES 



ADVANCED WORK IX THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



By W. H. Wasson and J. A. Ramsey. 




TOPEK.A 

CRANE & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

1898 



^1 



*\ 



1 0476 



Copyright 1898, by Crane & Co. 



JUN 4 lm 







PREFACE. 



The Normal Institute Reader is designed to pre- 
sent in a concise form the principles of reading and 
elocution. 

In reading there are certain principles to be ob- 
served, and rules to be followed, if the best results 
are to be obtained. 

There are too many teachers of elocution and too 
few who tench reading. 

Our schools are full of pupils who can acquire 
thought for themselves, but who cannot transmit 
that thought intelligently to others. 

To remedy these conditions, and to awaken an in- 
terest in reading, are the objects of this Institute 
Reader. 

An earnest effort has been made to thoroughly sys- 
tematize the subject, and reduce to a concise form 
the various definitions usually given. 

In this work, standard authors have been con- 
sulted, and from their opinions have been compiled 
the most concise definitions, suitable and apt illus- 
trations, and definite outlines. 

If by its use, an interest in reading is aroused in 

institutes and reading classes, the object of the book 

will have been attained. 

AVasson & Ramsey. 



READING. 



LESSON I. 
GENERAL DEFINITIONS. 

1. An alphabet is a series of letters or signs which 
form the elements of written language. 

2. Letters are characters used to represent elemen- 
tary sounds. 

3. An elementary sound is the simplest sound 
of the language. 

4. A vowel sound is one made with the vocal or- 
gans open. 

5. A consonant sound is one which is partially 
obstructed by the organs of speech. 

6. A syllable is a letter or combination of letters 
uttered with a single impulse of the voice. 

7. A word consists of a syllable or syllables, and 
represents an idea. 

S. A spoken word is a sound or sounds represent- 
ing an idea. 

9. A written word is a letter or letters so arranged 
as to represent an idea. 

10. A language is represented either by words, 
signs, or characters. 



6 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

11. A sentence is a collection of words making 
complete sense. 

12. Reading is the comprehension and transmission 
of thought from the written or printed page, and is of 
two kinds, silent and audible. 

13. Silent reading- is comprehending or interpret- 
ing the thoughts of an author from the written or 
printed page. 

14. Audible reading is the correct interpretation 
of thought from the written or printed page, and the 
transmission of this thought to others by means of the 
organs of speech. 

15. Elocution consists in the natural expression of 
thought by speech and gesture. It is audible reading 
intensified by gesture, facial expression, and position 
of the body. 

16. Gesture is that part of the speaker's manner 
which pertains to his attitude, to the use and carriage 
of his person, and the movement of his limbs in de- 
livery. 

17. Facial expression has reference to the appear- 
ance of the countenance while rendering thought. 



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NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 



LESSON II. 
ABTICULATION. 

Articulation is the correct utterance of the ele- 
mentary sounds of a language. 

Sounds are of three kinds — vocal, subvocal, and 

aspirate. 

Vocals are sounds which consist of pure tone only. 

TABLE OF ELEMENTAKY SOUNDS. 
LONG VOCALS. 



SEPARABLE. 



mate. 


e, 


as 


in 


eve. 


fare. 


e, 




" 


err. 


far. 


i, 




" 


fine. 


pass. 


5, 




" 


no. 


ball. 


u, 




" 


tube. 


senate. 


00, 






cool. 


SHORT 


VOCALS. 








mat. 


o, 


as 


in 


not. 


met. 


u, 


" 


" 


us. 


it. 


00, 


" 


i. i 


lobk. 


DIPHTHONGS. 












INSEPARABLE. 



oi, oy, as in coin, boy. 



ou, ow, as in noun, now. 



Sutavocals are those in which the vocalized breath 
is more or less obstructed by the organs of speech. 

Aspirates are mere emissions of breath, and may 
be modified by the vocal organs. 



ARTICULATION. 



9 



Cognate Sounds are those produced with the or- 
gans of speech in a similar position. The following is 
a table of the 



COGNATE SOUNDS. 



SUBVOCALS. 




ASPIRATES. 


b, as 


in 


babe ; 


similar to p, 


as 


in 


rap. 


d, " 


i i 


rod; 

fog; 


" t, 
" " k, 




i i 


at. 
book. 


h " 


a 


judge 


" " oh, 




a 


chat. 


V, " 

th, " 




live ; 
them; 


" " f, 
" " th, 




« 


file, 
myth. 


z, " 


" 


buzz ; 


" s, 




n 


sink. 


zh, " 
w, " 


<< 


azure ; 
way ; 


" sh, 
" wh, 




a 


shine. 
when . 


Remark 


— Tl 


iese eigl 


iteen sounds make 


nine 


pai 


rs of cogi 



sounds. In articulating the aspirates, the vocal organs are put 
in the position required for the articulation of the correspond- 
ing subvocals ; but the breath is expelled without the utterance 
of any vocal sound. 



The following subvocals and aspirates have no cog- 
nates : 



as 


in 


mill. 




ng, 


as 


in 


ring 


" 


u 


him. 




r, (rough) " 


a 


rule 


c< 


u 


pin. 




r, (smooth) " 


a 


far. 










y> 


ti 


a 


yes. 








ASPIRATES. 












V 


as 


in 


hat. 







10 



WRMAL IXSTITUTE READER. 



SUBSTITUTES. 

Substitutes are characters used to represent sounds 
ordinarily represented by other characters. 

TABLE OF SUBSTITUTES. 

a for e, as in many. j y for 1, as in hymn. 



a ' 


' 6, < 


' what. 


9 ' 


' B, ' 


' cite. 


e ' 


' E ) '' 


' there. 


€ ' 


' k, ' 


' cap. 


§ ' 


' a, ' 


' freight. 


eh' 


' sh, ' 


' machine. 


i ' 


: e ' 


' police. 


eh' 


1 k, ' 


' chord. 


i ' 


' % ' 


' sir. 


g ' 


' h ' 


' cage. 


6 ' 


' u, ' 


' son. 


n ' 


' ng, ' 


' rink. 


o ' 


' 00, ' 


' to. 


§ ' 


' z, ' 


' roge. 


? ' 


• 00, ' 


' would. 


s ' 


' sh, ' 


' sugar. 


6 ' 


' a, ' 


' corn . 


X ' 


' gz, ' 


' examine. 


o ' 


' e, < 


' worm. 


gh' 


' f, ' 


' laugK. 


u ' 


' do, ' 


' Pull. 


ph< 


< f, •< 


' sylph. 


u ' 


' ^5 ' 


' urge. 


qu' 


' k, ' 


' unique. 


y ' 


; I ' 


' my. 


qu' 


' kw, ' 


' quick. 



Vowels are the letters that usually represent the 
tonic elements. They are a, e, i, o, and u. 

Consonants are the letters that usually represent 
either subtonie or atonic elements. They are of two 
kinds, single letters and combined, including all the 
letters of the alphabet except the vowels and the com- 
binations ch, sh, wh, ng ; th subtonie, and th atonic. 

Labials are letters whose oral elements are chiefly 
formed by the lips. They are b, p, iv, and wh. M may 
be regarded as a nasal labial, as its sound is affected 
by the nose. F and v are labia-dentals. 



ARTICULATION. H 

Dentals are letters whose oral elements are chiefly 
formed by the teeth. They arej, s, z, ch, and sh. 

Liingnals are letters whose oral elements are chiefly 
formed by the tongue. They are d, 1, r, and t. N is 
a nasal-lingual; y, a lingua-palatal, and th, a lingua- 
dental. 

• 
Palatals are letters whose oral elements are chiefly 

formed by the palate; they are g and k; ng is a nasal- 
palatal. 

Cog-nates are letters whose oral elements are pro- 
duced by the same organs, in a similar manner: thus, 
/ is a cognate of v, k of g, etc. 

Alphabetic equivalents are letters, or combina- 
tions of letters, that represent the same elements or 
sounds : thus, i is an equivalent of e in pique. 

EXERCISES IX ARTICULATIOX. 

Bring me some ice ; not some mice. 

A big black bug bit a big black bear. 

Life's fitful fever over, he rests well. 

Eight great gray geese grazing gayly into Greece. 

He sawed six long, slim, sleek, slender saplings for sale. 

Five wise wives weave withered withes. 

TThelply Whewell AVhite was a whimsical, whining, whisper- 
ing, whittling whistler. 

Some shun sunshine ; do you shun sunshine ? 

She sells sea-shells ; do you sell sea-shells ? 

He built an ice house near the lake, and shouted, "Ice cream 
for two young ladies ! " 

Round the rough and rugged rocks the ragged rascals rudely 
ran. 

Booth's youths with truths use wicked oaths. 



12 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Pluma placed a pewter platter on a pile of plates. Where is 
the pretty pewter platter Pluma placed the pie upon ? 
A shot-silk sash shop. 
A sure sign of sunshine. 

He spoke reasonably, philosophically, disinterestedly, and 
yet particularly, of the unceremoniousness of their communi- 
cability, and peremptorily, authoritatively and unhesitatingly 
declared it to be wholly inexplicable. 

He buil£ him an ice house. 
He built him a nice 7iouse. 

My heart is awed within me. 
My heart is sawed within me. 

A great error often exists. 
A great terror often exists. 

He is content in either situation. 
He is content in neither situation. 

My brothers ought to owe nothing. 
My brothers sought to own nothing. 

He was framed in the religion of his fathers. 
He was stained in the religion of his fathers. 

" Sad angler ; sad dangler." 

"Amidst the mists and coldest frosts, 
With stoutest wrists and loudest boasts 
He thrusts his fists against the posts, 
And still insists he sees the ghosts." 

Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle-sifter, in sifting a 
sieve full of unsifted thistles, thrust three thousand thistles 
through the thick of his thumb. Now, if Theophilus Thistle, 
the successful thistle-sifter, in sifting a sieve full of unsifted 
thistles, thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his 
thumb, see that thou, in sifting a sieve full of unsifted thistles 
thrust not three thousand thistles through the thick of thy 
thumb. Success to the successful thistle-sifter. 

THE TWO BOOT-BLAOKS. 

A day or two ago, during a lull in business, two little boot- 
blacks, one white and one black, were standing on the street 



ACCENT AND EMPHASIS. 13 

corner doing nothing, when the white boot-black agreed to 
black the black boot-black's boots. The black boot-black was, 
of course, willing to have his boots blacked by his fellow boot- 
black, and the boot-black who had agreed to black the black 
boot-black's boots went to work. 

AVhen the boot-black had blacked one of the black boot- 
black's boots till it shone in a manner that would make any 
boot-black proud, this boot-black who had agreed to black the 
black boot-black's boots refused to black the other boot of the 
black boot-black until the black boot-black, who had consented 
to have the white boot-black black his boots, should add five 
cents to the amount the white boot-black had made blacking 
other men's boots. This the boot-black whose boot had been 
blacked refused to do, saying it was good enough for a black 
boot-black to have one boot blacked, and he didn't care whether 
the boot that the boot-black hadn't blacked was blacked or not. 

This made the boot-black who had blacked the black boot- 
black's boot as angry as a boot-black 'often gets, and he vented 
his black wrath by spitting upon the blacked boot of the black 
boot-black. This roused the latent passions of the black boot- 
black, and he proceeded to boot the white boot-black with the 
boot which the white boot-black had blacked. A fight ensued, 
in which the white boot-black who had refused to black the 
unblacked boot of the black boot-black, blacked the black boot- 
black's visionary organ, and in which the black boot-black wore 
all the blacking off his blacked boot in booting the white boot- 
black. 



LESSOX III. 
ACCENT AND EMPHASIS. 

Accent is the peculiar force or stress given to one 
or more syllables of a word in its pronunciation, and 
is marked thus, [']. There are two kinds, primary and 
secondary. 

Tlie primary accent is the principal accent, as, 
hab'it. 

The secondary accent is a slighter accent given 



14 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

to a syllable when two or more syllables in the same 
word are accented; as, hab'i ta' tion. The first sylla- 
ble has a secondary accent. 

Parts of speech are often distinguished by accent 
alone. 

EXAMPLES. 

Why does your ab'sent friend absent' himself ? 

Did he abstract' an ab' struct of your speech from the desk ? 

Note the mark of ac'cent, and accent' the right syllable. 

Desert' us not in the des'ert. 

If that proj'ect fail, he will project' another. 

My in' crease is taken to increase' your wealth. 

Perfume' the room with rich per'fume . 

If they reprimand' that officer, he will not regard their 
rep'rimand. 

If they rebel', and overthrow' the government, even the reb'els 
cannot justify the o'verthroiv. 

In Au'gust, the august' writer entered into a com'pact to 
prepare a compact' discourse. 

ACCENT CHANGED BY CONTRAST. 

The ordinary accent of words is sometimes changed 
by a contrast in sense, or to express opposition of 
thought. 

EXAMPLES. 

He must t'n'crease, but I must decrease. 

He did not say a new addition, but a new Edition. 

Consider well what you have done, and what you have left 
■undone. 

I said that she will sws'pect the truth of the story, not that 
she will expect it. 

He that Ascended is also the same that ascended. 

This corruptible must put on ^'corruption ; and this mortal 
must put on iw'mortality. 



ACCENT AND EMPHASIS. 15 

EMPHASIS. 

" 'T is not enough the voice y be sound and clear 7 — 
'T is modulation' that must charm the ear. 
When desperate heroes grieve with tedious moan, 
And whine their sorrows in a see-saw tone, 
The same soft sounds of unimpassioned woes 
Can only make the yawning hearers doze. 
The voice all modes of passion can express 
That marks the proper word with proper stress ; 
But none emphatic can that speaker call, 
AVho lays an equal emphasis on all. ,, 

Emphasis is the peculiar force or stress of voice 
given to one or more words of a sentence. 

To give a word emphasis, is to pronounce it in a 
forcible manner. No uncommon tone, however, is nec- 
essary, as words may be made emphatic by prolonging 
the vowel sounds, by a pause, or even by a whisper. 

Emphatic words are often printed in italics; those 
more emphatic, in small capitals ; and those that re- 
ceive the greatest force, in CAPITALS. 

Emphasis is of two kinds : absolute and relative, or 
antithetic. 

ABSOLUTE EMPHASIS. 

Where the emphasis is independent of any contrast 
or comparison with other words or ideas, it is called 
absolute emphasis. 

EXAMPLES. 

I shall know but one country. I was born an American ; I 
live an American; I shall die an American. 

I shall sing the praises of October, as the loveliest of months. 

A good man loves himself too well to lose an estate by gam- 
ing, and his neighbor too well to win one. 

The good man is honored, but the evil man is despised. 

The young are slaves to novelty; the old, to custom; the 
middle-aged, to both; the dead, to neither. 



16 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

The wicked flee when no man pursueth ; but the 
bold as a lion. 

They come ! to arms ! to arms ! TO ARMS ! 

None but the brave, none but the brave, none but the 
BRAVE deserve the fair. 

The thunders of heaven are sometimes heard to roll in the 
voice of a united people. 

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign 
troop remained in my country I never would lay down my 
arms — never, never, NEVER. 

Let us fight for our country, our whole country, and NOTH- 
ING BUT OUR COUNTRY. 

Was that country a desert ? No : it was cultivated and 
fertile; rich and populous! Its sons were men of genius, spirit, 
and generosity! Its daughters were lovely, susceptible, and chaste! 
Friendship was its inhabitant ! Love was its inhabitant. 

The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, Sir, — 
LET IT COME ! 

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give 
me LIBERTY, or give me DEATH ! 

The combat deepens ! On, ye brave, 
Who rush to glory or the grave! 

Rise — fellow-men ! our country — yet remains ! 
By that dread name we wave the sword on high, 
And swear for her — to live — with her — to die. 

But most — by numbers judge the poet's song: 
And smooth or rough, with them is — right or wrong. 

He said ; then full before their sight 
Produced the beast, and lo ! — 'twas white. 

RELATIVE EMPHASIS. 

Where there is antithesis, either expressed or implied, 
the emphasis is called relative. 

EXAMPLES. 

We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. 
But I am describing your condition, rather than my own. 



INFLECTIONS. 17 

I fear not death, and shall I then fear thee f 

Hunting men, and not beasts, shall be his game. 

He is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but 
for the sins of the whole world. 

John was punished ; William, rewarded. 

Without were fightings, within were fears. 

Business sweetens pleasure, as labor sweetens rest. 

Justice appropriates rewards to merit, and punishments to 
crime. 

On the one side, all was alacrity and courage; on the other, all 
was timidity and indecision. 

The wise man is happy when he gains his own approbation, 
the fool, when he gains the applause of others. 

His care was to polish the country by art, as he had protected 
it by arms. 

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own 
heart; his next, to escape the censure of the world. 

Religion raises men above themselves ; irreligion sinks them 
beneath the brutes. 

It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall 
be my dying sentiment: independence now, and independence 
forever ! 



LESSON IV. 
INFLECTIONS. 



Inflections of the voice are its glidings upward or 
downward, or both, to indicate emphasis or to fully 
express the thought. 

Inflections are of three kinds : rising, falling, and 
the circumflex. 

The Rising Inflection is the upward sliding of the 
voice in the pronunciation of a word; as, Do you like 
apples? [marked thus : apples 7 .] 



18 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

The Falling Inflection is the downward sliding of 
the voice in the pronunciation of a word; as, I do like 
apples\ 

The Circumflex is the union of the two inflections 
in the same word or syllable, and is used in the lan- 
guage of irony or scorn: as, You must take me for a 
fool to think that I would do that. Marks [- ~]. 

The Monotone, which is a succession of words on 
the same key or pitch, and is not properly an inflection, 
is often employed in passages of solemn denunciation, 
sublime description, or expressing deep reverence and 
awe. It is marked with the short horizontal dash over 
the accented vowel. As, 

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, 
holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of 
hie glory. 

Blessing, honor, glory, and power be unto him that 
sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and 
ever. 

RULES FOR INFLECTION. 

I. Direct questions, or those that can be answered 
by yes or no, generally require the rising inflection, and 
their answers the falling. 

EXAMPLES. 

Do you think he will come to-day 7 ? No v ; I think he will 
not\ 

Was that Henry'? No v ; it was John\ 
Did you see William 7 ? Yes\ I did\ 

MODIFICATIONS OF RULE I. 

Note I. — Answers that are given in a careless or indifferent 
manner, or in a tone of slight disrespect, take the rising inflec- 
tion in all cases. 



INFLECTIONS. 19 

'Examples. — Did you see William'? I did/. — What did he say 
to you v ? Not much'. 

Note II. — Direct questions, when they have the nature of an 
appeal, or are spoken in an exclamatory manner, take the fall- 
ing inflection. In these cases the voice often falls belmv the 
general pitch, contrary to the general rule for the falling inflec- 
tion. 

Examples. — Is not that a beautiful sight v ? — Will you persist 
in doing it v ?— Is it right v ?— Is it just v ? 

Note III. — When a direct question is not understood, and is 
repeated with emphasis, the repeated question takes the falling 
inflection. 

Examples. — Will you speak to him to-day / ? If the question 
is not understood, it is repeated with the falling inflection, 
thus: Will you speak to him to-day v ? — Are you going to Sa- 
lem' ? I said, Are you going to Salem v ? 

II. The pause of suspension, denoting that the sense 
is unfinished, such as a succession of particulars that 
are not emphatic, cases of direct address, sentences im- 
plying condition, and the case absolute, generally re- 
quire the rising inflection. 

EXAMPLES. 

John', James', and William', come here. 
The great', the good', the honored', the noble', the wealthy', 
alike pass away. 

Friends', Komans', countrymen', lend me your ears. 

Jesus saith unto him, Simon', son of Jonas', lovest thou me' ? 

III. Indirect questions, or those which cannot be 
answered by yes or no, generally require the falling 
inflection, and their answers the same. 

EXAMPLES. 

When did you see him v ? Yesterday\ 

When will he come again v ? To-morrow v . 

Who say the people that I am N ? They answering, said, John 



20 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

the Baptists ; but some say Elias v ; and others say that one of 
the old prophets N is risen again. % 

Note. — But when the indirect question is one asking a repeti- 
tion of what was not at first understood, it takes the rising in- 
flection. "What did he say v ?" is an indirect question, with 
the falling inflection, asking for information. But if I myself 
heard the person speak, and did not fully understand him, and 
then ask some person to repeat what he said, I give my, question 
the rising inflection, thus : " What y did he say 7 ? " 

IV. A completion of the sense, whether at the close 
or at any other part of the sentence, requires the fall- 
ing inflection. 

EXAMPLES. 

He that saw me 7 saw you also\ and he who aided me once 7 
will aid me again \ 

Note. — But when strong emphasis, with the falling inflec- 
tion, comes near the close of a sentence, the voice often takes 
the rising inflection at the close. 

Examples. — If William does not come, I think John y will be 
here 7 . — If he should come, what y would you do 7 ? 

Cassius : What night is this ? Casca : A very pleasing night 
to honest men 7 . 

V. Words and clauses connected by the disjunctive, 
or, generally require the rising inflection before the dis- 
junctive, and the falling after it. Where several words 
are thus connected in the same clause, the rising inflec- 
tion is given to all except the last. 

EXAMPLES. 

Will you go 7 , or stay v ? I will go v . Will you go in the 
buggy 7 , or the carriage 7 , or the cars 7 , or the coach v ? I will 
go in the cars\ 

He may study law 7 , or medicine 7 , or divinity v ; or 7 , he may 
enter into trade\ 

Note I. — When the disjunctive or is made emphatic, with 
the falling inflection, it is followed by the rising inflection, in 



INFLECTIONS. 2 1 

accordance with the note to Rule IV; as, "Pie must have trav- 
eled for health, oi A pleasured" 

Examples. — He must either work s , or x study 7 . — He must be a 
mechanic, o? A a lawyer 7 . — He must get his living in one way, 
or x the other 7 . 

Note II. — When or is used conjunctively, as no contrast is de- 
noted by it, it requires the rising inflection after as well as 
before it, except when the clause or sentence expresses a com- 
pletion of the sense. 

Example. — Did he give you money 7 , or food 7 , or clothing 7 ? 
No\ he gave me nothing\ 

VI. When negation is opposed to affirmation, the 
former takes the rising and the latter the falling in- 
flection, in whatever order they occur. Comparison 
and contrast (antithesis) come under the same head. 

EXAMPLES. 

I did not hear him 7 , I saw him\ — I said he was a good sol- 
die^, not v a good citizen 7 . — He will not come to-day 7 , but to- 
morrow\ — He did not call me 7 , but you\ — He means dutiful\ 
not undutiful 7 . — I come to bury Caesar\ not to praise him 7 . 

This is no time for a tribunal of justice 7 , but for showing 
mercy v ; not for accusation 7 , but for philanthropy v ; not for 
trial 7 , but for pardon v ; not for sentence and execution 7 , but for 
compassion and kindness\ 

COMPARISON AND CONTRAST. 

Homer was the greater genius 7 , Virgil the better artist v ; in 
the one we most admire the man 7 , in the other the work\ 
— There were tyrants at home 7 , and robbers abroad v . 

VII. For the sake of variety and harmony, the last 
pause but one in a sentence is usually preceded by the 
rising inflection. 



The minor longs to be of age v ; then to be a man of business v ; 
then to arrive at honors 7 ; then to retired 

Time taxes our health 7 , our limbs, 7 our faculties 7 , our 
strength 7 , and our features\ 



22 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

VIII. 1st. A Commencing Series. 

In an emphatic series of particulars, where the series 
begins the sentence, but does not either end it or form 
complete sense, every particular except the last should 
have the falling inflection. 

EXAMPLE. 

Oar disordered hearts\ our guilty passions\ our violent prej- 
udices\ and misplaced desires / , are the instruments of the 
trouble which we endure. 

2d. A Concluding Series. 

When the series ends the sentence, or forms complete 
sense, every particular in the series, except the last but 
one, should have the falling inflection ; and indeed all 
should have it, if the closing member of the series is of 
sufficient length to admit a pause with the rising in- 
flection, before the end. 

EXAMPLE. 

Charity suffereth long 7 , and is kind v ; charity envieth not\ 
charity vaunteth not itself v ; is not puffed up v ; doth not behave 
itself unseemly^; seeketh not her owri^; is not easily provoked' ; 
thinketh no evil s . 

IX. Expressions of tender emotion, such as grief, 
pity, kindness, gentle joy, a gentle reproof, gentle ap- 
peal, gentle entreaty or expostulation, etc., commonly 
require a gentle rising inflection. 

EXAMPLES. 

Mary 7 ! Mary 7 ! do v not do so 7 . 

My mother 7 ! when I learned that thou wast dead 7 , 
Say v , wast thou conscious 7 of the tears 7 I shed 7 ? 
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son 7 , 
Wretch even then 7 , life's journey just begun 7 ? 



INFLECTIONS. 28 

X. Expressions of strong emotion, such as the lan- 
guage of exclamation (not designed as a question), au- 
thority, surprise, distress, denunciation, lamentation, 
earnest entreaty, command, reproach, terror, anger, 
hatred, envy, revenge, etc., and strong affirmation, re- 
quire the falling inflection. 

EXAMPLES. 

What a piece of work is man v ! How noble in reason v ! how 
infinite in faculties v ! in action 7 , how like an angel v ! in appre- 
hension 7 , how like a god v ! 

My lords, I am amazed^; yes, my lords, I am amazed^ at his 
Grace's speech. 

Woe unto you, Pharisees v ! Woe unto you, Scribes v ! 

I dare K accusation. I defy K the honorable gentleman. 

I' d rather be a dog K , and bay the moon y , than such a Roman 7 . 

Note.— When exclamatory sentences become questions they 
require the rising inflection. 

Examples. — What are you saying 7 ! — Where are you going 7 ! — 
They planted by your care 7 ! No! your oppressions planted 
them in America v ! 

THE CIKCUMFLEX. 

XI. Hypothetical expressions, sarcasm, and irony, 
and sentences implying a comparison or contrast that 
is not fully expressed, often require a union of the two 
inflections on the same syllable. 

EXAMPLES. 

If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the 
ungodly and the sinner appear ? 

I grant you I was down, and out of breath; and so was 

he. 

And but for these vile guns, he would himself have 
been a soldier, 



24 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Queen : Hamlet, you have your father much offended. 
Hamlet : Madam, you have my father much offended. 

Shylock: If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my 

revenge. 
Hath a dog money ? Is it possible a cur can lend two 

thousand ducats ? 

They tell us to be moderate ; but they, they are to revel 
in profusion. 

You pretend to reason ? You don't so much as know 
the first elements of reasoning. 

They boast they come but to improve our state, en- 
large our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error! 
Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, 
who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and 
pride! They offer us protection! yes, such protection 
as vultures give to lambs — covering and devouring 
them! Tell your invaders we seek no change — and 
least of all such change as they would bring us ! 



LESSON V. 
FOKM OF VOICE. 

Form of voice refers to the manner in which the 
sound is emitted from the organs of speech. 

There are three forms of voice : the effusive, expulsive, 
and explosive. 

The effusive form has a gentle beginning, gentle 
continuation, and a gentle ending, and is represented 
thus: O 

Give a, e, i, o, u effusively. 



FORM OF VOICE. 25 

EXAMPLES. 

1. How often, oh, how often, 

In the days that had gone by, 

I had stood on that bridge at midnight 

And gazed on that wave and sky ! 

How often, oh, how often, 

I had wished that the ebbing tide 

Would bear me away on its bosom 

O'er the ocean wild and wide ! 

2. Methinks I love all common things — 

The common air, the common flower ; 
The dear, kind, common thought, that springs 

From hearts that have no other dower, 

No other wealth, no other power, 
Save love : and will not that repay 
For all else fortune tears away ? 

3. Oh, show me where is He, 

The high and holy One, 
To whom thou bend'st the knee, 
And pray'st, " Thy will be done ! " 

4. She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free 
from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature 
fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; 
not one who had lived, and suffered death. 

Expulsive form of voice has an abrupt beginning 
but a gentle ending, and is represented thus : CE^=- 

Give a, e, i, o, u expulsively. 

It is used m language of firmness , determination , argu- 
ment , and in common conversation. 

EXAMPLES. 

Firmness. 
1. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand 
and my heart to this vote ! 

Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment 

approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I 

' have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am 



26 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off, as I began, 
that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It 
is my living sentiment; and, by the blessing of God, it shall 
be my dying sentiment: independence now, and independence 
forever ! 

2. righteous heaven ! ere Freedom found a grave, 
Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save? 
AVhere was thine arm, O vengeance, where thy rod, 
That smote the foes of Zion and of God ? 

3. But it cannot, shall not be ; this great woe to our beloved 
country, this catastrophe for the cause of national freedom, this 
grievous calamity for the whole civilized world, it cannot be, it 
shall not be. No, by the glorious nineteenth of April, 1775 ; no, 
by the precious blood of Bunker Hill, of Princeton, of Saratoga, 
of King's Mountain, of Yorktown ; no, by the dear immortal 
memory of Washington — that sorrow and shame shall never be. 

Determination. 

4. They tell us, sir, that we are weak, — unable to cope with 
so formidable an adversary. But w T hen shall we be stronger? 
Will it be the next week, or the next year ? Will it be when 
we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be sta- 
tioned in every house ? Shall we gather strength by irresolu- 
tion and inaction ? Shall we acquire the means of effectual 
resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the de- 
lusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us 
hand and foot ? 

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means 
which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three mil- 
lions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a 
country as that wmich we possess, are invincible by any force 
which our enemy can send against us. 

5. I come not here to talk. You know too well 
The story of our thraldom. We are slaves ! 
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights 
A race of slaves ! He sets, and his last beams 
Fall on a slave ! 

6. Ye call me chief ; and ye do well to call him chief who, for 
twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man 
or beast the broad empire of Borne could furnish, and who never 



FORM OF VOICE. 27 

yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say 
that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie 
my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in 
all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them 
come on. And yet I was not always thus — a hired butcher, a 
savage chief of still more savage men ! 

The Explosive Form of voice has an abrupt be- 
ginning and an abrupt ending, and is represented 
thus: IH] 

It is used in language of rage, scorn, joy, or terror. 

Give a, e, i, o, u, explosively. 

EXAMPLES. 

Rage. 
1. Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes ! 
Gehenna of the waters ! thou sea of Sodom ! 
Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods ! 
Thee and thy serpent seed ! 

{To the executioner:) Slave, do thine office ! 
Strike as I struck the foe ! Strike as I would 
Have struck those tyrants ! Strike deep as my curse ! 
Strike — and but once ! 

2. "Down ! down ! " cried Mar, " your lances down ! 

Bear back both friend and foe." 

3. Strike — till the last armed foe expires ; 
Strike — for your altars and your fires ; 
STRIKE — for the green graves of your sires ; 

God — and your native land ! 

Scorn. 

1. Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire, 

And shook his very frame for ire ; 

And — " This to me ! " he said,— 

"An 't were not for thy hoary beard, 

Such hand as Marmion's had not spared 

To cleave the Douglas' head ! 
And, first, I tell thee, haughty peer, 
He who does England's message here. 



28 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Although the meanest in her state, 
May well, proud Angus, be thy mate: 
And, Douglas, more, I tell thee here, 

Even in thy pitch of pride, 
Here, in thy hold, thy vassals near 

I tell thee, thou 'rt defied ! 
And if thou said'st I am not peer 
To any lord in Scotland here, 
Lowland or Highland, far or near, 

Lord Angus, thou hast lied I " 

2. You common cry of curs.! whose breath I hate 
As reek o' the rotten fens — whose loves I prize 
As the dead carcasses of unburied men, 

That do corrupt my air — I banish you ! 

3. No ! Thus I rend the tyrant's chain, 
And fling him back a boy's disdain ! 

Joy. 
Joyous ideas should have fast time, loud force, lively 
smooth stress, pure quality, long slides, higher pitch, 
and wide range of melody. 

1. You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother 

dear ; 
To - morrow '11 be the happiest time of all the glad New 

Year— 
Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest 

day; 
For I'mto be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen 

o' the May. 

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake, 
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break: 
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands 

gay, 
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen 

o' the May. 

2. Hushed the people's swelling murmur, 
List the boy's exultant cry ! 
" Ring ! " he shouts aloud ; " Ring, Grandpa ! 
RING ! OH, RING FOR LIBERTY J " . 



MODULATION. 29 

3. Go, ring the bells and fire the guns, 

And fling the starry banners out; 
Shout " FREEDOM " till your lisping ones 
Give back their cradle shout. 

4. Shout ! Shout ! my warrior boy, 

And wave your cap, and clap your hands for joy. 
Cheer answer cheer, and bear the cheer about ! 
Hurrah ! HURRAH ! for the fiery fort is ours. 
"Victory !" "Victory !" "Victory ! " is the shout. 

Terror. 
1. Up with your ladders ! Quick ! 'tis but a chance ! Be- 
hold, how fast the roaring flames advance ! Quick ! quick ! 
brave spirits, to his rescue fly ! Up ! up ! men ! all ! this 
hero must not die ! 



LESSON VI. 
MODULATION. 

" "Tie not enough the voice he sound and clear — 
Tis modulation that must charm the ear." 

Modulation consists in the adaptation of speech to 
the sentiment it is designed to convey. The ordinary 
changes or modulations are quality, pitch, force, time, 
slides, or inflections. 

Quality.— Quality refers to kind of voice and its relation to the kind or 
quality of sentiment. It properly belongs to modulation. 



PITCH AND COMPASS. 

Pitch, is the elevation or depression of voice in ex- 
pressing thought. 

There are three general kinds of pitch : low, middle 7 . 
and high. 

EXERCISES IN - PITCH. 

Every person, in reading or speaking, assumes a cer- 



30 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

tain pitch, which may be either high or low, according 
to circumstances, and which has a governing influence 
on the variations of the voice, above and below it. 
This degree of elevation is usually called the key-note. 

As an exercise in varying the voice in pitch, the 
practice of uttering a sentence on the several degrees 
of elevation, as represented in the following scale, will 
be found beneficial. First, utter the musical syllables, 
then the vowel sound, and lastly, the proposed sen- 
tence, — ascending and descending. 

Let some one of the class skilled in music give this 
exercise first, then all read; then three or four may 
read together, each in a different pitch, using first, 
third, fifth, and eighth tones. 

8. — do — ® — a — e — i — o — u. 

7. si • a s 4 o u. 
6. — la — • — a — e — i — o — u. 



5. sol • a e i o u. 

4. — fa — a — a — e — i — o — u. — 

3. mi • a e i v u. 
-2. — re ■ — • — a — e — i — o — it. 



1. do • a e i o u. 

Note. — Voices of males are usually keyed an octave below the voices of fe- 
males, and this may be shown in the above exercise by one skilled in music. Call 
attention to the difference in pitch of the voices of children on the play-ground 
and in the school-room. 

Low Pitch is used in expressing solemn, sublime or 
pathetic thought. 

EXAMPLES. 

Solemn. 

1. Little Nell was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so 

free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a 

creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath 

of life; not one who had lived and siiffered death. Her couch 



MODULATION. 31 

was dressed with here and there some winter bevvies and gveen 
leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favov. " When I 
die, put neav me something that has loved the light, and had 
the sky above it always." Those were her words. 



2. Your sorrows, O people, are his peace! Your bells and 
bands and muffled drums sound triumph in his ear. Wail and 
weep here ! Pass on ! 

3. When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the 
moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained, what is man that 
Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou visitest 
him? 

4. Mountains ! who was your Builder ? Who laid your awful 
foundations in the central fires, and piled your rocks and snow- 
capped summits among the clouds? I know who built you. It 
was God. 

5. So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 

To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

6. 5 T is midnight's holy hour,— and silence now 
Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er 

The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 
The bell's deep tones are swelling — 't is the knell 
Of the departed year. 

Sublime Thought. 

1. Eternity ! — thou pleasing, — dreadful thought! 
Through what variety of untried being, 

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! 
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me ; 
But shadows, clouds and darkness rest upon it. 

2. Father ! Thy hand 

Hath reared these venerable columns. Thou 

Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down 



32 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Upon the naked earth ; and forthwith rose 
All these fair ranks of trees. They in Thy sun 
Budded, and shook their green leaves in Thy breeze, 
And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow, 
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died 
Among their branches, till at last they stood, 
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark — 
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold 
Communion with his Maker ! 

3. Thou, too, sail on, O ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears , 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what master laid thy keel, 
What workman wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast and sail and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 

Pathetic Thought. 

1. Soft! he comes — now, heart, be quick, 

Leaping in triumphant pride ! 
Oh ! it is a stranger footstep, 

Gone by on the other side. 
Ah ! how many wait forever 

For the steps that do not come ! 
Wait until the pitying angels 

Bear them to a peaceful home ! 
Many in the still of midnight 

In the streets have lain and died, 
While the sound of human footsteps 

Went by on the other side. 

2. She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. 
Her little bird — a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger 
might have crushed — was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the 
strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless 
forever. 

She was dead and past all help, or need of it. The ancient 



MODULATION. 00 

rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was 
ebbing fast — the garden she had tended — the eyes she had 
gladdened — the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtless hour — 
the paths she had trodden as if it were but yesterday — could 
know her no more. 

Middle pitch is used in common conversation and 
in expressing unimpassioned thought and moderate 
emotion. 

EXAMPLES. 

1. When the sun rises or sets in the heavens, when spring 
paints the earth, when summer shines in its glory, when autumn 
pours forth its fruits, or winter returns in its awful forms, we 
view the Creator manifesting himself in his works. 

The verdant lawn, the shady grove, the variegated landscape, 
the boundless ocean, and the starry heavens are contemplated 
with pleasure by every beholder. 

2. Grass is the forgiveness of nature — her constant benedic- 
tion. Fields trampled with battle, saturated with blood, torn 
with the ruts of cannon, grow green again with grass, and car- 
nage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become grass- 
grown like rural lanes, and are obliterated. Forests decay, 
harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal. . . . 
Banished from the thoroughfare and the field, it bides its time 
to return, and when vigilance is relaxed, or the dynasty has 
perished, it silently resumes the throne from which it has been 
expelled, but which it never abdicates. It bears no blazonry of 
bloom to charm the senses with fragrance or splendor, but its 
homely hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. It 
yields no fruit in earth or air, and yet should its harvest fail for 
a single year, famine would depopulate the world. 

3. AVe must educate! We must educate! or we must perish 
by our own prosperity. If we do not, short from the cradle to 
the grave will be our race. 

High Pitch is used in expressing gay, joyous or 
animated thought; also in giving commands. 
Gay. 
1. Robert of Lincoln is gaily dressed, 

Wearing a bright black wedding-coat ; 



M NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

"White are his shoulders, and white his crest. 
Hear him call in his merry note : 
" Bob-o-link, bob-o-link, 
Spink, spank, spink, 
Look what a nice new coat is mine ; 
Sure, there was never a bird so fine. 

Chee, chee, chee." 

2. Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, 

Through all the wide Border his steed was the best ; 
And save his good broadsword, he weapon had none,- 
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone ! 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar ! 

Joyous or Animated. 

1. Hurrah for our ships ! our merchant ships ! 

Let's raise for them a song; 
That safely glide o'er the foaming tide, 

With timbers stout and strong; 
That to and fro on the waters go, 

And borne on the rushing breeze, 
Like birds they fly, 'neath every sky, 

From South to Northern seas ! 
Hurrah for them all, both great and small, 

That float our waters free ; 
May they safely sail in calm or gale — 

In home or foreign sea : 
Hurrah again for our merchantmen, 

Hurrah for our men-of-war ! 
Ring out the shout for our steamships stout, 

Hurrah for them all ! Hurrah ! 

2. " The slogan 's ceased — but hark ! din ye na hear 
The Campbells' pibroch swell upon the breeze ! 
They're coming, hark ! " then falling on her knees,— 
" We're saved," she cries, " we're saved." 

3. Go ring the bells and fire the guns, 

And fling the starry banners out ; 
Shout " Freedom ! " till your lisping ones 
Give back their cradle-shout. 



MODULATION. B5 

Command. 

1. Charge ! Chester, charge ! On ! Stanley, on ! 

2. A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! 

3. Jump far out, boy, into the wave ! 
Jump, or I fire ! 

4. Eun ! run ! run for your lives ! 

5. Fire ! fire ! fire ! Ring the bell ! 

6. " Forward the Light Brigade ! 
Charge for the guns ! " he said : 
Into the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 

COMPASS. 

Compass is the variation of the voice above and 
below the key taken in reading ; the distance between 
the high and low tones being the compass of the voice. 

Note.— Every one has a certain pitch of voice in which he can speak most 
easily to himself and most agreeably to others; this may be called the natural 
pitch. This is the pitch in which we converse; and this must be the basis of 
every improvement we acquire from art and exercise. In order, therefore, to 
strengthen this middle tone, we ought to read and speak in it as loud as possible 
without suffering the voice to rise into a higher key. This, however, is no easy 
operation. It is not very difficult to be loud in a high tone, but to be loud and 
forcible without raising the voice into a higher key, requires great practice and 
management. 

The best method of acquiring this power of voice is to practice reading and 
speaking 3ome strong, animated passages in a small room, and to persons placed 
ac as small a distance as possible; for. as we naturally raise our voice to a higher 
key when we speak to people at a great distance, so we naturally lower our key 
as those to whom we speak come nearer. When, therefore, we have no idea of 
being heard at a distance, the voice will not be so apt to rise into a higher key 
when we wish to be forcible; and consequently, exerting as much force as we 
are able in a small room, and to people near us, will tend to swell and strengthen 
the voice in the middle tone. 

EXERCISES IN COMPASS. 

1. He said, and on the rampart heights arrayed 
His trusty warriors, few but undismayed ; 
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, 
Still as the breeze, but dreadful .is the storm ! 



86 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Low, murmuring sounds along their banners fly, 
Revenge or death ! the watchword and reply : 
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm, 
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm ! 

2. The combat deepens ! On, ye brave ! 
Who rush to glory or the grave ! 
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave ! 

And charge with all thy chivalry ! 
Ah ! few shall part where many meet ! 
The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 
And every turf beneath their feet 

Shall be a soldier's sepulcher! 

3. His speech was at first low-toned and slow. Sometimes 
his voice would deepen, like the sound of distant thunder; and 
anon, his flashes of wit and enthusiasm would light up the anx- 
ious faces of his hearers, like the far-off lightning of a coming 
storm. 

4. Mr. Orator Puff had two tones in his voice, 

The one squeaking thus, and the other down so; 
In each sentence he uttered he gave you your choice ; 
For one half was B alt, and the rest G below. 

But he still talked away, 'spite of coughs and of frowns, 
So distracting all ears with his ups and his downs, 
That a wag once, on hearing the orator say, 
" My voice is for war ," asked him, — " Which of them, pray?" 

Reeling homeward one evening, top-heavy with gin, 
And rehearsing his speech on the weight of the crown, 

He tripped near a sawpit, and tumbled right in, 
" Sinking fund," the last words as his noddle came down. 

" Oh! save!" he exclaimed, in his he-and-she tones, 
" Help me out! help me out! I have broken my bones ! " 
"Help you out!" said a Paddy, who passed; "what a 

bother ! 
Why, there's two of you there; can't you help one an- 
other?" 

Oh ! oh ! Orator Puff, 

One voice for an orator 's surely enough ! 

Note.— Read the above, changing the voice a full octave on the parts requir- 
ing it 



QUALITY. 87 

LESSON VII. 

QUALITY. 

Quality is the kind of tone, and is divided into pure 
and impure. The pure is subdivided into simple pure 
and orotund ; the impure is subdivided into pectoral, gut- 
tural, tremulous, aspirate, and falsetto. 

PURE TONE. 

Pure Tone is formed with the vocal organs in their 
natural position, and is used in common conversation and 
simple narration. 

Note.— "The human voice is to be considered as a musical instrument — an 
organ, constructed by the hand of the Great Master of all Harmony. It has its 
bellows, its pipe, its mouthpiece; and when we know the ' stops ' 'it will dis- 
course most eloquent music.' It has its gamut, or scale of ascent and descent; 
it has its keys, or pitch,— its tones,— its semi-tones, its bass, its tenor, its alto, 
its melody, its cadence. It can speak as gently as the lute, "like the sweet south 
upon a bed of violets,' or as 6hrilly as the trumpet; it can tune the 'silver sweet' 
note of love, and the ' iron throat of war': in fine, it may be modulated by art to 
any sound of softness or ot strength, of gentleness or harshness, of harmony or 
discord. And the art that wins this music from the strings is Elocution." 

If the voice is not really and technically pure, exercise in vocal culture may 
make it so. Children's voices seem to be naturally pure. It is the utterance of 
evil passion, with bad reading and reciting in the schools, that makes the voice 
sharp and disagreeable. The Teacher should see that all the exercises of the 
school are carried on in cheerful tones. 

EXAMPLES. 

1. Over the river they beckon to me ; 

Loved ones who have passed to the further side. 
The gleam of their snowy robes I see, 

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. 
There was one with ringlets of sunny gold, 

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue ; 
He passed in the twilight gray and cold, 

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view. 
We saw not the angels who met him there. 

The gates of the city we could net see — 
Over the river, over the river, 

My brother stands waiting to welcome me. 



38 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

2. When the lessons and tasks are all ended, 

And the school for the day is dismissed, 
And the little ones gather around me 

To bid me good-night and be kissed ; 
Oh, the little white arms that encircle • 

My neck in a tender embrace ! 
Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven, 

Shedding sunshine of love on my face ! 

3. Two brown heads with tossing curls, 

Ked lips shutting over pearls, 
Bare feet, white and wet with dew, 

Two eyes black and two eyes blue,— 
Little boy and girl were they, 

Katie Lee and Willie Gray. 

4. The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want. He maketh 
me to lie down in green pastures ; he leadeth me beside the still 
waters. He restore th my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of 
righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through 
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou 
art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou 
preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies ; 
thou anointest my head with oil ; my cup runneth over. Surely, 
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life ; 
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

OROTUND. 

The orotund is a round, full tone, being the maxi- 
mum of the pure quality, and is produced with the 
throat open and the cavity of the mouth enlarged. 

It is used in expressing the language of awe, sub- 
limity, grandeur, and courage. 

EXAMPLES. 

Awe. 

1. O righteous heaven ! ere Freedom found a grave, 
Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save? 
Where was thine arm, O Vengeance, where thy rod, 
That smote the foes of Zion and of God ? 



QUALITY. 39 

2. O Thou eternal One ! whose presence bright 

All space doth occupy, all motion guide, 
Unchanged through time's all-devastating blight ! 

Thou only God, there is no god beside ! 
Being above all things, mighty One, 

Whom none can comprehend and none explore ; 
Who filPst existence with thyself alone, — 
- Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er, — 

Being whom we call God, and know no more ! 

3. 'Tis midnight's holy hour, — and silence now 
Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er 

The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 
The bell's deep tones are swelling — 'tis the knell 
Of the departed year. 

Sublimity and Grandeur. 

1. Of all the sights that nature offers to the eye and mind of 
man, mountains have always stirred my strongest feelings. I 
have seen the ocean when it was turned up from the bottom by 
tempest, and noon was like night, with the conflict of the bil- 
lows and the storm that tore and scattered them in mist and 
foam across the sky. 

I have seen the desert rise around me, and calmly, in the 
midst of thousands uttering cries of terror and paralyzed by 
fear, have contemplated the sandy pillars coming like the ad- 
vance of some gigantic city of conflagration flying across the 
wilderness, every column glowing with intense fire, and every 
blatt — death ; the sky vaulted with gloom, the earth sifurnaec. 

But with me the mountain, in tempest or in calm, the throne 
of the thunder or with the evening sun painting its dells and 
declivities in colors dipped in heaven, has been the source of 
the most absorbing sensations. 

There stands magnitude giving the instant impression of a 
power above man — grandeur that defies decay — antiquity that 
tells of ages unnumbered — beauty that the touch of time makes 
only more beautiful — use exhaustless for the service of man — 
strength imperishable as the globe; the monument of eternity, 
the truest earthly emblem of the ever-living, unchangeable, irre- 
sistible Majesty of God. 



40 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

2, The sky is changed ! and such a change ! O Night, 
And Storm, and Darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 

Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
Leaps the live thunder ! — not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue ; 
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 

3. Oh ! show me where is He, 
The high and holy One, 

To whom thou bend'st the knee, 

And prayest, "Thy will be done ! " 

I hear thy song of praise, 

And lo ! no form is near : 

Thine eyes I see thee raise, 

But where doth God appear ? 
Oh ! teach me who is God, and where his glories shine, 
That I may kneel and pray, and call thy Father mine. 

Courage. 

1. And the praetor drew back as I were pollution, and sternly 
said, "Let the carrion rot: there are no noble men but Ro- 
mans." And so, fellow-gladiators, must you, and so must I, 
die like dogs. O Rome ! Rome ! thou hast been a tender nurse 
to me. Ay ! thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shep- 
herd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, 
muscles of iron and a heart of flint, — taught him to drive the 
sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm 
it in the marrow of his foe ; to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of 
the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl. 
And he shall pay thee back until the yellow Tiber is red as 
frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled ! 

2. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; 
Or close the wall up with our English dead. 
Oh, when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
Then imitate the action of -the tiger : 
Stiffen the sinew — summon up the blood — 
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage ; 
Then lend to the eye a terrible aspect ; 



QUALITY. 41 

Aye, set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, 
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 
To its full height ! On, on, you noble English, 
Whose blood is set from fathers of war proof ; 
Cry, Heaven, for Harry, England and St. George ! 

3. Was the Maine blown up and her crew hurled to eternity 
by a foe ? Did the hand of a bloody Spaniard do it ? Is Amer- 
ican spirit frozen in our veins, that we do crouch and cower 
before our insulters? O comrades ! warriors ! Americans ! if 
we must fight, let us remember the Maine and the insult to 
Old Glory ! If we must die, let it be in an effort to advance 
human freedom, and to avenge the death of the victims of the 
Maine. 

IMPURE TONE. 

Impure tone is the pure tone modified by the 
position of the organs of speech. 

PECTORAL. 

The pectoral is a harsh, husky tone, produced by a 
rigid contraction of the muscles of the throat and chest. 
It is used in expressing horror, hatred and malice, or 
despair. 

EXAMPLES. 

Horror. 

1. Oh ! I have passed a miserable night, 
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights, 
That as I am a Christian faithful man, 

I would not spend another such a night, 
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days, 
So full of dismal terror was the time ! 

2. " Clarence is come, — false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, 
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury ; 

Seize on him, furies, take him unto torment ! " 
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends 
Environed me, and howled in mine ears 
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise 
I trembling waked, and, for a season after, 
Could not believe but that I was in hell — 
Such terrible impression made my dream. 



42 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

3. So frowned the mighty combatants, that hell 
Grew darker at their frown ; so matched they stood ; 
For never but once more was either like 

To meet so great a Foe : and now great deeds 
Had been achieved, whereof all hell had rung, 
Had not the snaky sorceress that sat 
Fast by hell-gate and kept the fatal key, 
Risen, and with hideous outcry rushed between. 

Hatred and Malice. 

1 . I loathe you in my bosom ! 

I scorn you with mine eye ! 
I '11 taunt you with my latest breath, 
And fight you till I die. 

2. Tell me I hate the bowl ? 

Hate is a feeble word : 
I loathe, abhor; my very soul 

With strong disgust is stirred 
Whene'er I see, or hear, or tell, 
Of the dark beverage of hell ! 

3. Falstaff : A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance 
too ! marry and amen ! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead 
this life long, I '11 sew nether-socks, and mend them, and foot 
them, too. A plague of all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, 
rogue. Is there no virtue extant? [He drinks, and then con- 
tinues:] You rogue, here 's lime in this sack: there's nothing 
but roguery to be found m villainous man : yet a coward is 
worse than a cup of sack with lime in it ; a villainous coward. 
Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt: if manhood, good 
manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a 
shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged in 
England ; and one of them is fat and grows old : a bad world, I 
say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms, or any- 
thing: a plague of all cowards, I say still. 

4. Fool, of thyself speak well ; fool, do not flatter : 
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain. 
Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree, 
Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree, 
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty ! guilty ! 



QUALITY. 43 



1. Oh, take the maddening bowl away, 

Remove the poisonous cup ! 
My soul is sick, — its burning ray 

Hath drunk my spirit up. 
Take, take it from my loathing lip, 

Ere madness fires my brain ; 
Take, take it hence, nor let me sip 

Its liquid death again ! 

2. Again, greater darkness enveloped the trembling earth. 
Anon, the heavens were rent with lightning, which nothing 
could have quenched but the descending deluge. Cataracts 
poured down from the lowering firmament. For an instant 
the horses dashed madly forward, beast and rider blinded and 
stifled by the gushing rain, and gasping for breath. Shelter 
was nowhere. The quivering beasts reared, and snorted, and 
sank upon their knees, dismounting their riders. 

3. I shall despair ! There is no creature loves me, 
And if I die, no soul will pity me: 
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself 
Find in myself no pity to myself ? 
Methought the souls of all that I had murdered 
Came to my tent, and every one did threat 
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard. 

GUTTUKAL. 

The guttural is produced by a resonance in the 
throat, resembling the growling of wild beasts. It is 
used to express extreme anger, hatred, or contempt. 

EXAMPLES. 

Extreme Anger. 

1. Next, Anger rushed, his eyes on fire, 

In lightnings owned his secret stings : 
In one rude clash he struck the lyre, 
And swept, with hurried hands, the strings. 

2. You common cry of curs ! whose breath I hate 
As reek o' the rotten fens — whose loves I prize 
As the dead carcasses of unburied men, 

That do corrupt my air — /banish you! 



44 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

3. Each hour, dark fraud, 
Or open rapine, or protected murder 
Ories out against them. But this very day, 

An honest man, my neighbor, — there he stands, — 
Was struck — struck like a dog, by one who wore 
The badge of Ursini ; because, forsooth, 
He tossed not high his ready cap in air, 
Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts, 
At sight of that great ruffian! 

4. Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire, 
And shook his very frame for ire ; 

And — "This to me!" he said,— - 
"An 'twere not for thy hoary beard, 
Such hand as Marmion's had not spared 
To cleave the Douglas' head!" 

Hatred or Contempt. 

1. How like a fawning publican he looks ! 
I hate him for that he is a Christian : 
But more, for that, in low simplicity, 
He lends out money gratis, and brings down 
The rate of usuance with us here in Venice. 
If I can catch him once upon the hip, 
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him ! 

2. Yes, to smell pork: to eat of the habitation which your 
prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into. I will buy with 
you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so follow- 
ing ; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with 
you. 

3. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward! 
Thou cold-blooded slave! 

Thou wear a lion's hide ? 

Doff it, for shame, and hang 

A calf -skin on those recreant limbs. 

4. Thou slave ! thou wretch ! thou coward ! 
Thou little valiant, great in villainy ! 
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side ! 



QUALITY. 45 

TREMULOUS. 

The tremulous tone is one in which the flow of the 
voice is broken. The vowels, instead of being uttered 
smoothly, are made up of a succession of impulses. 

EXAMPLES. 

1. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, 

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, 
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span : 
Oh, give relief, and heaven will bless your store. 

2. Farewell ! a long farewell ! to all my greatness. 

3. Can he desert us thus ? He knows I stay, 
Night after night in loneliness, to pray 
For his return — and yet he has no tear ! 
No ! No ! It cannot be ! He will be here ! 

4. Alas ! my noble boy, that thou shouldst die ! 

Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair ! 
That Death should settle in thy glorious eye, 

And leave his stillness in this clustering hair ! 
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb, 

My proud boy, Absalom ! 
Cold is thy brow, my son, and I am chill, 

As to my bosom I have tried to press thee. 
How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill, 

Like a rich harpstring, yearning to caress thee, 
And hear thy sweet " my father " from these dumb 
And cold lips, Absalom ! 

5. Mother, the angels do so smile, and beckon little Jim ; 
I have no pain, dear mother, now, but oh ! I am so dry : 
Just moisten poor Jim's lips again — and mother, don't 

you cry. 

ASPIRATE. 

The Aspirate is a whispered utterance with little 
or no vocality. Its characteristic is distinctness, and 
what is lost in vocality is made up in distinctness. It is 
used to denote secrecy, fear, or revenge. 



46 NORMAL INSTITUTE HEADER. 

EXAMPLES. 

Secrecy. 

1. Speak softly ! 
All's hushed as midnight yet. 

See'st thou here ? 
This is the mouth o' the cell : no noise ! and enter. 

2. How ill this taper burns ! 
Ha! who comes here f 

Oold drops of sweat hang on my trembling flesh, 
My blood grows chilly, and I freeze with horror! 

3. The ancient Earl, with stately grace, 
Would Clara on her palfrey place, 
And whisper, in an under- tone, 

"Let the hawk stoop, his prey is flown.- " 

4. While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 

Or whispering with white lips, "The foe! they come, 
they come!" 

5. "Is all prepared? — speak soft and low." 
" All ready ! We have sent the men, 

As you appointed, to the place." 

6. And the bride-maidens whispered," 'Twere better, by far, 
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." 

7. " Silence! " in undertones they cry, 

" No whisper ! — not a breath ! 
The sound that warns thy comrades nigh 
Shall sentence thee to death." 

Fear. 

1. Hush! Keep still! Don't breathe a loud word! They 
little suspect where we are. How eagerly they seek to find us ! 

2. " Simpson, go below and see what's the matter." 
Simpson came up with his face pale as ashes, and said, "Cap- 
tain, the ship is on fire." 

"Is there any danger?" 

"Danger, here — see the smoke bursting out — go forvmrd, if you 
would, save your lives." 

3. Hush ! breathe it not aloud ; 

The wild winds must not hear it ! Yet, again, 
I tell thee — we are free ! 



QUALITY. 47 

Revenge. 

1. How like & fawning publican he looks ! 
I hate him for that he is a Christian. 
If I but catch him once upon the hip, 

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. 

2. " Clarence is come — false , fleeting , perjured Clarence, — 
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury ! 

Seize on him, furies! take him to your torments! " 

FALSETTO. 

Falsetto is generally produced above the natural 
tone, and is used in the imitation of high female 
voices, in the voices of children, and in affectation, ter- 
ror, etc. 

1. Though rudely blows the wintry blast, 
And sifting snows fall white and fast, 
Mark Haley drives along the street, 
Perched high upon his wagon-seat ; 
His somber face the storm defies, 
And thus from morn till eve he cries, — 

" Charco' ! charco' ! " 
While echo faint and far replies, — 

"Hark, O! hark, O!" 
" Charco' ! " — " Hark, O ! " — Such cheery sounds 
Attend him on his daily rounds. 

2. The splendor falls on castle walls, 

And snowy summits old in story ; 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow ; set the wild echoes flying; 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

3. " O Ephraim ! " said she, the tears rolling down her cheeks 
and the smiles coursing up. "Why, what is it, Aramathea?" 
said the astonished Mr. Jones, smartly rubbing his head where 
it had come in contact with the lounge. " Baby ! " she gasped. 
Mr. Jones turned pale and commenced to sweat. " Ba — O, O, 
0, Ephraim! Baby has — baby has got — a little toothy, oh! 
oh!" - 



48 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

4. Yes, it is worth talking of ! But that 's how you always 
try to put me down. You fly into a rage, and then, if I only 
try to speak, you won't hear me. That 's how you men always 
will have all the talk to yourselves : a poor woman isn't allowed 
to get a word in. 

5. And from the crowd beneath, in accents wild, 

A mother screams, " O God ! my child ! my child ! " 

Street Cries. 

rees ! 
feesh ! ber- cream ! 

6. Cat- Straw- Ice- 

Calling. 

lie! O Char- 

7. Char- lie! 

over ! ferry ! 

Hie you man of the 

In imitating the moaning of the wind the voice runs from 
chest tones to falsetto, and back again. 



LESSON VIII. 

" FORCE. 

Force is the degree of intensity with which sound 
is uttered, without reference to its tone, pitch, rate, or 
form. There are four kinds commonly used in read- 
ing or speaking, viz. : Subdued, moderate, energetic, and 
sustained. 

Subdued force is used when the ideas to be ex- 
pressed contain the element of fear, sadness, or intense 
, reverence and awe. 

EXAMPLES. 

Fear. 
1. The little girl slid off his knee, 
And all of a tremble stood. 
" Good wife," he cried, " come out and see, 
The skies are as red as blood." 



FORCE. 49 

"God save us!" cried the settler's wife ; 
"The prairie's a-fire — %ve must run for life!" 

2. Hark ! I hear the bugles of the enemy ! They are on their 
march along the bank of the river. We must retreat instantly, 
or be cut off from our boats. I see the head of their column 
already rising over the height. Our only safety is in the screen 
of this hedge. Keep close to it; be silent; and stoop as you run. 
For the boats! Forward! 

3. Oh, coward conscience, how dost thou affright me ! 
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight ; 
Oold, fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. 

4. Arm ! arm ! it is — it is the cannon's opening roar ! 
Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 

And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness. 

Sadness. 

1. Alas ! my noble boy ! that thou shouldst die ! 

Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair ! 
That Death should settle in thy glorious eye, 

And leave his stillness in this clustering hair ! 
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb, 
My proud boy, Absalom ! 

2. Dead — for the want of a crust ! 

Dead in the cold night air ! 
Dead — and under the dust, 

Without ever a word of prayer ; 
In the heart of the wealthiest city, 

In this most Christian land, 
Without ever a word of pity, 

Or the touch of a kindly hand ! 

3. And, friends, dear friends, when it shall be 
That this low breath is gone from me, 

And 'round my bier ye come to weep, 
Let one, most loving of you all, 
Say, " Not a tear must o'er her fall: 

He giveth his beloved sleep." 



50 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Intense Disgust. 

1. Hence, Horrible shadow! 
Unreal mockery, hence! 

2. Tell me I hate the bowl ? 

Hate is a feeble word : 
I loathe, abhor, my very soul 

With strong disgust is stirred 
Whene'er I see, or hear, or tell, 
Of the dark beverage of hell! 

3. I scorn forgiveness, haughty man ! 
You 've injured me before the clan ; 
And naught but blood shall wipe away 
The shame I have endured this day. 

4. Thou worm! thou viper! to thy native earth 
Return! Away! Thou art too base for man 
To tread upon! Thou scum! Thou reptile! 

MODERATE FORCE. 

Moderate force is used in common conversation 
and simple narration, and is generally combined with 
the pure tone. 

EXAMPLES. 

1. Methinks I love all common things — 

The common air, the common flower ; 
The dear, kind common thought, that springs 

From hearts that have no other dower, 

No other wealth, no other power, 
Save love ; and will not that repay 
For all else fortune tears away ? 

2. There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world — a kind 
of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills. Men take one 
who has offended, and set him down before the blowpipe of 
their indignation, and scorch him, and burn his faults into him; 
and when they have kneaded him sufficiently with their fiery 
fists, then — they forgive him. 

3. I heard a man who had failed in business, and whose fur- 
niture was sold at auction, say that when the cradle and the 
piano went, tears would come, and he had to leave the house to 
be a man. 



FORCE. 51 

4. So live that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan that moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

5. And there shall be no night there ; and they need no 
candle, neither light of the sun ; for the Lord God giveth them 
light : and they shall reign for ever and ever. 

ENERGETIC FORCE. 

Energetic force is used in intense excitement, or in 
giving command, and is generally combined with the 
expulsive or explosive forms of voice. 

EXAMPLES. 

Excitement. 

1. The lake has burst! The lake has burst! 

Down through the chasms the wild waves flee : 
They gallop along with a roaring song, 
Away to the eager awaiting sea ! 

2. And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car 
AVent pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war. 

3. Stand! the ground's your own, my braves ! 
Will ye give it up to slaves f 

"Will ye look for greener graves? 

Hope ye mercy still ? 
What's the mercy despots feel ? 
Hear it — in yon battle-peal ! 
Read it — on yon bristling steel! 

Ask it, ye who will ! 

4. My friends, our country must be free ! The land 
Is never lost, that has a son to right her. 



52 , NORMAL INSTITUTE HEADER. 

And here are troops of sons, and loyal ones ! 

Strong in her children should a mother be : 

Shall ours be helpless, that has sons like us ? 

God save our native land, whoever pays 

The ransom that redeems her ! Now what wait we ? 

For Alfred's word to move upon the foe f 

Upon him then ! Noiv think ye on the things 

You most do love! Husbands and fathers, on 

Their wives and children ; lovers on their beloved ; 

And all upon their COUNTRY ! 

Command. 

1. Begone, 
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 
Pray to the gods to intermit the plagues. 

2. Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, 
All in the valley of Death rode the six hundred. 
"Forward, the Light Brigade! charge for the guns!'* he 

said: 
Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred. 

3. Come, Antony! and young Octavius, come! 
Revenge yourself on Oassius ; 

For Oassius is aweary of the world ; 
Hated by one he loves, braved by his brother, 
Checked by a bondsman, all his faults observed, 
Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote, 
To cast into his teeth. 

4. Rise — fellow-men! our country — yet remains ! 
By that dread name we wave the sword on high, 
And swear for her — to live — with her — to die. 

5. Go ring the bells, and fire the guns, 

And fling the starry banners out ; 
Shout "Freedom! " till your lisping ones 
Give back their cradle-shout. 

SUSTAINED FORCE. 

Sustained force is used when commands are given, 
during intense excitement, or in fierce anger. 



FORCE. 53 

EXAMPLES. 

Intense Excitement. 

1. Stand ! the ground's your own, my braves ! 
Will ye give it up to slaves f 

Will ye look for greener graves f 
Hope ye mercy still? 

2. Our brethren are already in the field: 

Why stand we here idle f 

3. And lo ! from the assembled crowd 
There rose a shout prolonged and loud, 
That to the ocean seemed to say : 

" Take her, O bridegroom old and gray ; 

Take her to thy protecting arms, 

With all her youth, and all her charms ! " 

4. Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who, 
for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of 
man or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who 
never yet lowered his arm. 

5. A moment there was awful pause — 

When Berkeley cried, "Cease, traitor, cease! 
God's temple is the house of peace ! " 

The other shouted, " Nay, not so, 
When God is with our righteous cause; 
His holiest places then are ours, 
His temples are our forts and towers 

Thai frown upon the tyrant foe; 
In this, the dawn of Freedom's day, 
There is a time to fight and pray!" 

Fierce Anger. 

Even in thy pitch of pride, 
Here, in thy hold, thy vassals near, 

I tell thee thou 'rt defied ! 
And if thou saidst I am not peer 
To any lord in Scotland here, 
Lowland or Highland, far or near, 

Lord Angus, thou hast lied! 



54 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

LESSON IX. 
EATE OR MOVEMENT. 

Rate or Movement has reference to the rapidity 
with which the successive words of a selection are ut- 
tered. There are three general divisions of rate : slow, 
moderate, and rapid. 

Note.— Other modifications of these three general divisions are often given, 
hut for the usual practice of the school-room these three are sufficient. 

Slow Rate is used in presenting thought containing 
adoration, grandeur, pathos, solemnity, and horror. 

EXAMPLES. 

Adoration. 

1. O thou Eternal One ! whose presence bright 

All space doth occupy, all motion guide ; 
Unchanged through time's all-devastating blight ; 
Thou only God ! There is no God beside ! 

2. The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, 

And spread the roof above them, ere he framed 
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems, in the darkling wood, 
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down 
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And supplication. 

3. Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the 
earth ! who hast set thy glory above the heavens ! When I con- 
sider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers ; the moon and the 
stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art 
mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? 
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast 
crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have 
dominion over the work of thy hands ; thou hast put all things 
under his feet. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name 
in all the earth \ 



BATE OR MOVEMENT. 55 

Grandeur. 

1. How reverend is the face of this tall pile, 
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, 
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof, 

By its own weight made steadfast and immovable, 
Looking tranquillity ! It strikes an awe 
And terror on my aching sight: the tombs 
And monumental caves of death look cold, 
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart. 

2. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll ! 

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain: 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 

Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, — unknelled, uncofnned, and unknown. 

Pathos. 

1. Alas ! my noble boy, that thou shouldst die ! 

Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair ! 
That Death should settle in thy glorious eye, 

And leave his stillness in thy clustering hair ! 
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb, 
My proud boy, Absalom ! 

2. Dark is the night ! how dark — no light — no fire ! 
Cold, on the hearth, the last faint spark expires ! 
Shivering she watches by the cradle-side, 

For him who pledged her love — last year a bride ! 

3. Days, months, years, and ages shall circle away, 

And still the vast waters above thee shall roll ; 
Earth loses thy pattern forever and aye ; 
sailor-boy ! sailor-boy ! peace to thy soul ! 

Solemnity. 

1. Into the Silent Land ! 

.Ah, who shall lead us thither? 
Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, 
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand, 



56 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Who leads us with a gentle hand 
Thither, O thither, 
Into the Silent Land ? 

2. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 

From the field of his fame, fresh and gory: 
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, 
But we left him alone with his glory. 

3. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day ; 

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea ; 

The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 

And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

Horror. 

1. I had a dream which was not all a dream, — . 
The bright sun was extinguished ; and the stars 
Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 
Eayless and pathless ; and the icy earth 
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air ; 
Morn came, and went, and came, and brought no day. 

2. I hear, 'mid dying groans, the cannon's crash ; 
I see, 'mid smoke, the musket's horrid flash ; 

Here, Famine walks ; there Carnage stalks, 
Hell in her fiery eye, she stains 

With purpled blood 

The crystal flood, 
Heaven's altars, and the verdant plains ! 

3. How ill this taper burns ! 
Ha! who comes here? 

Cold drops of sweat hang on my trembling flesh, 
My blood grows chilly, and I freeze icith horror! 

4. How frightful the grave ! how deserted and drear ! 
With the howls of the storm-wind and the creaks of the 

bier, 
And the white bones all clattering together. 

5. And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is 

sitting 
On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber- 
door ; 



RATE OR MOVEMENT. 57 

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is 

dreaming, 
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow 

on the floor ; 
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on 

the floor 
Shall be lifted — nevermore ! 

Moderate rate is used in rendering unimpassioned 
ideas, and is generally used in the pure tone. 

EXAMPLES. 

1. It is a strange thing how little in general people know 
about the sky. It is the part of creation in which Nature has 
done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and 
evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in 
any other of her works ; and it is just the part in which we 
least attend to her. 

2. She thanked me, and bade me if I had a friend that loved 
her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, and that 
would win her. 

3. There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune ; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 

Is bound in shallows, and in miseries: 

And we must take the current when it runs, 

Or lose our ventures. 

4. Leaves have their time to fall, 

And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath, 

And stars to set — but all, 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death ! 

5. Maud Muller, on a summer's day, 
Kaked the meadow, sweet with hay. 

6. To make men patriots, to make men Christians, to make 
men the sons of God, let all the doors of heaven be opened, and 
let God drop down charmed gifts — winged imaginations, all- 
perceiving reason, and all-judging reason, whatever there is 
that can make men wiser and better — let it descend upon the 
head of him who has consecrated himself to the work of man- 



58 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

kind, and who has made himself an orator for man's sake and 
for God's sake. 

Rapid rate is used to express joy or mirth, confusion, 
violent anger, or sudden fear. 

EXAMPLES. 

Joy 01 Mirth. 

1. Away ! away ! our fires stream bright 

Along the frozen river, 
And their arrowy sparkles of brilliant light 

On the forest branches quiver. 
Away ! away to the rocky glen , 

Where the deer are wildly bounding ! 
And the hills shall echo in gladness again 

To the hunter's bugle sounding. 

2. So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, 
So light to the saddle before her he sprung : 

" She is won ! AVe are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur ; 
They '11 have fleet steeds that follow ! " quoth young 
Lochinvar. 

Confusion. 

1. The lake has burst ! the lake has burst ! 

Down through the chasms the wild waves flee : 
They gallop along, with a roaring song, 
Away to the eager awaiting sea ! 

2. He woke to hear his sentries shriek, — 

" To arms ! they come ! the Greek ! the Greek ! " 
He woke to die midst flame and smoke, 
And shout and groan and saber-stroke, 
And death-shots falling thick and fast 
As lightnings from the mountain cloud. 

3. And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 

The mustering squadron and the clattering car 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war. 



RATE OR MOVEMENT. 59 

Violent Anger. 

1. On the Earl's cheek the flush of rage 
O'ercame the ashen hue of age. 

Fierce he broke forth, — "Anddar'st thou then 
To beard the lion in his den, 

The Douglas in his hall? 
And hop'st thou hence unscathed to got 
No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no! 
Up drawbridge, grooms, — vjhat, tvarder, ho! 

Let the portcullis fall." 

2. In one short hour, 
The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw 

The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried 
For vengeance! Eouse ye, Romans ! rouse ye, slaves ! 
Have ye brave sonsf Look in the next fierce brawl 
To see them die. Have ye fair daughters? Look 
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained, 
Dishonored; and if ye dare call for justice, 
Be answered by the lash. 

3. Quit the bust above my door ! 

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form 
from off my door ! 

4. You shall die, base dog! — and that before yon cloud has 
passed over the sun. 

5. I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked ! 

Sudden Fear. 

1. Hush ! Hark ! Did stealing steps go by ? 
Game not faint whispers near ? 

2. But, hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in once more, 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat, 

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! 

Arm! arm! it is — it is the cannon's opening roar! 

Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness ; 



60 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
Which ne'er might be repeated. Who could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise ? 
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; 
And the deep thunder, peal on peal afar, 
And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier -ere the morning star; 
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 
Or whispering with white lips — " The foe! They come! 
They come! 

3. Hark to the hoofs that galloping go ! 

The adjutants flying — 
The horsemen press hard on the panting foe, 

Their thunder booms in dying. Victory ! 
Tremor has seized on the dastards all, 

And their leaders fall ! Victory ! 



LESSON X. 
STRESS. 



Stress is the application of force to the vowel sound 
of a word, and is of six kinds : Radical, final, median, 
thorough compound, and intermittent or tremulous. 

Radical stress is the application of force to the first 
part of a vowel sound, and is used in command, defiance, 
and argument. It is marked thus : ^r==» 

EXAMPLES. 

Command. 
1. You common cry of curs ! whose breath I hate 
As reek o' the rotten fens — whose loves I prize 
As the dead carcasses of unburied men, 
That do corrupt my air — I banish you / 



STRESS. 61 

2. Up! comrades, up! In Rokeby's halls 
Never be it said our courage falls ! 

3. " Charge ! Chester, charge ! 
On ! Stanley, on ! " 

Were the last words of Marmion. 

4. Rouse ye, Romans ! rouse ye, slaves ! 

Have ye brave sons ? Look in the next fierce brawl 
To see them die. Have ye fair daughters ? Look 
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained, 
Dishonored ; and if ye dare call for justice, 
Be answered by the lash. 

Defiance. 

1. And, rising on his theme's broad wing, 

And grasping in his nervous hand 

The imaginary battle-brand, 
In face, of death he dared to fling 
Defiance to a tyrant king. 

2. Quick, as it fell from the broken staff, 
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf ; 
She leanedrfar out on the window-sill, 
And shook it forth with a royal will : 
"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, 
But spare your country's flag," she said. 

3. I have returned, not as the right honorable member has 
said, to raise another storm, — J have returned to protect that 
constitution, of which I was the parent and the founder, from 
the assassination of such men as the honorable gentleman and his 
unworthy associates. They are corrupt, — they are seditious, — 
and they at this very moment are in a conspiracy against their 
country! Here I stand for impeachment or trial! I dare accusa- 
tion ! I defy the honorable gentleman! I defy the government ! 
I defy their whole phalanx ! Let them come forth! I tell the 
ministers I will neither give them quarter, nor take it ! 

Argument. 

1. Were I an American, as I am an Englishman, while a 
single foreign troop remained in my country I would never lay 
down my arms — never ! never! NEVER ! 



62 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

2. Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot 
have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest 
injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the 
discovery and the punishment of this dee.p guilt. I cheerfully 
share in the opprobrium, how much soever it may be, which is 
cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all 
who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing this deed 
of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their 
enormous crime at the bar of public justice. 

Final stress is application of force to the latter 
part of the vowel sound, and is used to express earnest 
resolve, firm determination, and stern rebuke. It is repre- 
sented thus, <r^ 

EXAMPLES. 

Earnest Resolve. 

1. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment 
approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I 
have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now 
ready here to stake upon it ; and I leave off as I began : that, 
live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is 
my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my 
dying sentiment: independence now, and independence forever! 

2. I have done my duty ; I stand acquitted by my conscience 
and my country ; I have opposed this measure throughout ; and 
I now protest against it as harsh, oppressive, uncalled for, 
unjust — as establishing an infamous precedent by retaliating 
crime against crime — as tyrannous, cruelly and vindictively 
tyrannous. 

3. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, 
give me liberty or give me death. 

Firm Determination. 

1. Let the consequences be what they Will, I am determined 
to proceed. The only principles of public conduct which are 
worthy of a gentleman or a man are, to sacrifice estate, health, 
ease, applause, and even life, at the sacred call of his country. 



STRESS. 63 

2. Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide, 
Hold hard the breath, and 6mcZ it£> every spirit 
To its full height ! On, on, you noble English ! 
AVhose blood is set from fathers of war-proof ; 
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, 
Have in these parts from morn till even fought, 
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument, 
Be copy now to men of grosser blood, 
And teach them how to war ! 

3. Still desirous to avoid such a tremendous slaughter as 
must have followed the discharge of a single gun, Major Wain- 
right advanced a step or two, and spoke even more firmly than 
before, urging them to depart. Again, and while looking 
directly into the muzzles of the guns, which they had seen 
loaded with ball, they declared their intention " to fight it 
out." This intrepid officer then took out his watch, and told 
his men to hold their pieces aimed at the convicts, but not to 
fire till they had orders; then, turning to the prisoners, he 
said: " You must leave this hall; I give you three minutes to decide; 
if at the end of that time a man remains, he shall be shot dead." 

Stern Rebuke, 

1. And, Douglas, more I tell thee here, 

Even in thy pitch of pride — 
Here in thy hold, thy vassals near, 
( Nay, never look upon your lord, 
And lay your hand upon your sword,) 

I tell thee thou 'rt defied ! 

Iii median stress the force is given to the middle 
of the sound, and is used in selections where a suc- 
cession of words are emphatic, or in rendering grand 
and sublime ideas. It is indicated thus, <d^> 



Succession of Words. 

Days, months, years, and ages shall circle away, 
And still the vast waters above thee shall roll ; 

Earth loses thy pattern forever and aye ; 
sailor-boy! sailor-boy! peace to thy soul. 



64 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

2. Property, character, reputation, everything, was sacri- 
ficed. 

Toils, sufferings, wounds, and death were the price of our 
liberty. 

Grand and Sublime Ideas. 

1. thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my 
fathers! whence are thy beams, sun! thy everlasting light? 
Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty : the stars hide them- 
selves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western 
wave. 

2. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll ! 

3. Father ! Thy hand 

Hath reared these venerable columns. Thou 
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down 
Upon the naked earth; and, forthwith, rose 
All these fair ranks of trees. They in thy sun 
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, 
And shot towards heaven. 

4. Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; even lift them up, ye ever- 
lasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come in. 

In thorough stress the force of voice is carried 
through the vowel sound, but is strongest in the middle. 
It is used in braggadocio, and in emphatic command, and 
is indicated thus, c^^d 

EXAMPLES. 

Braggadocio. 

1. Come one, come all, — this rock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I. 

2. I tell ye what ! 

I '11 fly a few times around the lot, 

To see how 't seems, then soon 's I've got 

The hang o' the thing, ez likely 's not, 

I '11 astonish the nation, 

An' all creation, 
By flyin' over the celebration ! 



STRESS. 65 

Over their heads I '11 sail like an eagle ; 

I '11 balance myself on my wings like a sea-gull ; 

I '11 dance on the chimbleys ; I '11 stand on the steeple ; 

I '11 flop up to winders an' scare the people ! 

Command. 

1. "Forward, the Light Brigade ! 
Charge for the guns!" he said: 
Into the valley of Death 
Rode the Six Hundred. 

Compound Stress is a union of the radical and 
final, and is upon the opening and closing of the vowel 
sound, and is used much in the language of surprise, 
mockery, or contempt. It is represented thus, ."2^X^ 

EXAMPLES. 

Surprise. 

1. Gone to be married ! Gone to swear a peace I 

False blood to false blood joined! Gone to be friends! 
Shall Lewis have Blanche, and Blanche these provinces f 

2. Julia. Why ! do you think I'll work? 
Duke. I think 'twill happen, wife. 

Julia. What! rub and scrub your noble palace cleanf 
Duke. Those taper fingers will do it daintily. 
Julia. And dress your victuals ( if there be any) ? 0,1 
shall go mad. 

3. Then came wandering by 

A shadow like an angel, with bright hair 
Dabbled in blood ; and he shrieked out aloud : 
" Clarence is come — false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, — 
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury ! 
Seize on him, Furies, — take him to your torments!" 

Mockery or Contempt. 

1. Yet this is Rome, 

That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne 
Of beauty ruled the world ! and we are Romans. 
Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman 
Was greater than a king! 



(56 NORMAL INSTITUTE HEADER. 

2. I'll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak: 
I'll have my bond ; and therefore speak no more. 
I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool, 
To shake the head, relent and sigh, and yield 
To Christian intercessors. Follow not: 
I'll have no speaking: I'll have my bond. 

3. If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen waiting for 
the butcher's knife. 

4. But base ignoble slaves, — slaves to a horde 
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots, lords 
Eich in some dozen paltry villages, — 
Strong in some hundred spearmen, only great 
In that strange spell — a name. 

Intermittent Stress is the varying of the voice 
in such a manner as to produce a tremulous tone, and 

is indicated thus, It is used in fear, joy, 

and laughter, and in the broken voice of sorrow, and in 
imitation of the feeble voice of old age. 

EXAMPLES. 

1. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, 

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, 
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span : 
Oh, give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. 

2. Mother, the angels do so smile, and beckon little Jim ; 
I have no pain, dear mother, now, but oh, I am so dry: 
Just moisten poor Jim's lips again — and mother, don't 

you cry. 

3. And now, farewell ! 'Tis hard to give thee up, 

With death, so like a gentle slumber, on thee: 
And thy dark sin ! Oh ! I could drink the cup, 

If from this woe its bitterness had won thee. 
May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home, 
My erring Absalom ! 









POSITION, GESTURE, ETC. 67 



LESSON XI. 

POSITION, GESTUEE, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION. 

Elocution is defined to be audible reading intensified 
by position of the body, gesture, and facial expression. 

The correct position for a reader or speaker is the 
erect, with one foot a little in advance of the other, 
with the shoulders well back, and the head erect, so as 
to give good capacity for breathing. 

POSITIONS ON THE STAGE. 

The body may assume many positions on the plat- 
form, but the mention of a few will suffice. They are 
as follows : 

First. Left foot in rear, supporting weight of body; 
right foot slightly advanced, forming an angle of about 
85 degrees with left, and heel of right pointing toward 
instep of left. 

Second. Right foot in rear, supporting weight of 
body; left foot slightly advanced, forming an angle 
of about 85 degrees with right, with heel of left point- 
ing toward instep of right. 

Third. Weight of body on both feet, which form an 
angle of about 85 degrees, with neither foot in advance ; 
body fronting the audience. 

Fourth. Body leaning forward, weight on advanced 
right foot, only the toe of left foot touching. 

Fifth. Body leaning forward, weight on advanced 
left foot, only the toe of right foot touching. 

The body inclines forward or backward from the 
erect as the thought presented requires it. 

In reading, the book should be held in the left hand, 
or may be changed to the other in a long selection. 



68 



NORMAL INSTITUTE HEADER. 



Care must be taken that the book may not intercept 
the sound as it proceeds from the reader to his 
audience. 

Gesture is a motion of any part of the body or 
limbs intended to express, enforce or emphasize an 
idea or an opinion. 

The parts of the body moved in gesture are the head, 
arms, and lower limbs. 





Con- 




versa- 




tional. 


w 




H 






Orato- 


rical. 


m 




H 




O 






Dra- 




matic. 



Position 



Passive. 
Active. 



Head. 



Movements 

of 

Body. 



Arm. 



f Location. 
Purpose. . -J Illustration. 
(.Emphasis. 



Lines 



f Straight. 
(Curved. 



Middle. 

Ascending. 

Descending. 



{Supine. 
Prone. 
Vertical. 



Lower Limbs. 
Facial Expression | ™ = ~ d ' 

The head movements should be in harmony with 
the sentiment, and directed to the different parts of 
the audience. Too frequent changes in the position of 
the head should be avoided, and a constant or habitual 
shaking of the head should be entirely discarded. 

After taking the stage and before commencing to 
speak, one should make a slight bow or give a facial 
recognition to the audience, which may be done by 
casting the eyes gently over the audience and at the 
same time moving the advanced foot to the rear and 
throwing the weight of the body upon it. The same 



POSITION, GESTURE, ETC. 69 

bow or recognition may be used after the close of the 
address. 

The arm movements should be in graceful lines, 
and equally, or nearly equally, distributed between 
the two arms. 

Forcible, bold and abrupt ideas require gestures in 
straight lines, while beautiful or grand thought re- 
quires the graceful curves. 

EXAMPLES. 

Straight-line gesture: 

1. Down, soothless insulter ! I trust not the tale ! 

2. " Down, down ! " cried Mar ; " your lances down. 
Bear back ! both friend and foe." 

Curved gesture: 

1. Cover them over with beautiful flowers. 

2. The Niobe of nations ! There she stands, 
Childless and croumless in her voiceless woe ! 

3. Oh, with what pride I used 

To walk these hills, and look up to my God 
And bless him that the land was free. 'T was free ; 
From end to end, from cliff to lake, 't was free ; 
Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks, 
And plow our valleys without asking leave. 

All gesture with reference to the intensity or char- 
acter of the sentiment is divided into conversational, 
oratorical, or dramatic. 

Conversational gesture is that used in ordinary 
conversation when the persons speaking become in- 
tensely interested. The hand is most used, and the 
motions of the arm do not extend above the elbow. 

Conversational Gesture, 
No ! dear as freedom is, and in my heart's just estimation prized 



70 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

above all price, I would much rather be myself the slave, and. 
wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. 

Oratorical gesture is used when speaking to a 
large company of individuals, or when animated 
thought is presented. 

The position of the body is erect and the arm move- 
ments extend to the shoulder. 

Oratorical Gesture. 
Blaze, with your serried columns ! 

I will not bend the knee ! 
The shackles ne'er again shall bind 

The arm which now is free. 
I've mailed it with the thunder, 

When the tempest muttered low, 
And where it falls, ye well may dread 

The lightning of its blow ! 

Dramatic gesture is used in very impassioned 
thought, as in the presentation of the drama. 

In dramatic gesture the body frequently changes 
position, and there is displayed by means of gesture 
and facial expression the in tensest feeling. 

Dramatic Gesture. 
He spoke of wrongs too long endured, 
Of sacred rights to be secured ; 
Then from his patriot tongue of flame 
The startling words for Freedom came. 
The stirring sentences he spake 
Compelled the heart to glow or quake, 
And, rising on his theme's broad wing 

And grasping in his nervous hand 

The imaginary battle-brand, 
In face of death he dared to fling 
Defiance to a tyrant king. 

Facial expression is the adaptation of the coun- 
tenance to the thought to be expressed. It requires a 



POSITION, GESTURE, ETC. 71 

vivid imagination on the part of the speaker, and a 
good control of the facial muscles. 

Note.— Qnintilian has said: "The face is the dominant power of expression. 
With this we supplicate; with this we threaten; with this we soothe; with this 
we mourn; with this we rejoice; with this we triumph; with this we make our 
submissions; upon this the audience hang; upon this they keep their eyes fixed; 
this they examine and study even before a word is spoken." 

Through the face we can read the mind before words are uttered. The ex- 
pectant child reads in the mother's eye the answer to his wish. Even an animal, 
the dog, may watch the eye of his master and discover from it, before a word is 
spoken, whether he is to receive caress or chastisement. 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF FACIAL EXPRESSION. 
THE BROW'S. 

An unruffled brow denotes tranquil thought. 

A contracted brow portrays anger, hatred, defiance. 

An elevated brow expresses wonder, admiration, ter- 
ror, joy. THE M0 TJTH. 

An open mouth shows surprise, wonder, admiration, 
fear, desire, mirth, love, silliness. 

The mouth closes lightly in repose and in peaceful 
thought. 

A tightly compressed mouth shows firmness, per- 
plexity, scorn. 

A drawing down of the corners of the mouth ex- 
presses scorn, contempt, pride. 

The mouth smiles in approval, satisfaction, happi- 

lieSS * THE EYES. 

The eyes are raised in joy, hope, admiration. 
They are cast down in shame, modesty, grief, disap- 
pointment. 

They look forward in determination. 

They are turned away in disgust, listening. 

They roll in rage, despair. 

They are opened wide and fixed in consternation. 

They flash in sudden anger. 



72 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

THE NOSE. 

The nose is elevated, in scorn. 

It is expanded in sudden anger. 

It is wrinkled in mirth. 

The nostrils are contracted in pain, fear. 

EXAMPLES IN FACIAL EXPRESSION. 

Reverence. 

Father, thy hand hath reared these venerable columns ; 
Thou dids't weave this verdant roof. 

Joyousness. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
Ring, happy bells, across the snow; 
The year is going, let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Secrecy. 

Hush ! Hark ! Did stealing steps go by ? 
Came not faint whispers near ? 

Indignant Command. 

Get thee back into the tempest, 
And the night's Plutonian shore ! 



Alas for the rarity of Christian charity 

Under the sun ! 
Oh ! it was pitiful ! Near a whole city full, 

Home she had none. 

Defiance. 

Thy threats, thy mercies I defy, 
And give thee in thy teeth the lie. 

Surprise. 

Gone to be married ! Gone to swear a peace ! 
False blood to false blood joined ! 



PAUSES AND PARAPHRASING. 73 

Extreme Fear. 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before: 
Arm ! Arm ! It is — it is the cannon's opening roar ! 

Note.— Drill the class thoroughly on the ahove selections, having them as- 
sume the facial expression necessary to their correct rendering. It is best to 
avoid gesture in rendering them, and to give the whole attention to facial ex- 
pression. 



LESSON XII. 

PAUSES AND PARAPHRASING. 

Pauses are introduced in reading or speaking, either 
for the sake of clearness or to give proper expression to 
ideas. They are of two kinds, grammatical and rhetor- 
ical. 

Grammatical pauses are introduced for the sake 
of clearness, and are to reading or speaking what punc- 
tuation is to the written or printed language. 

Rhetorical pauses are made by the reader or 
speaker for the sake of force or emphasis. They may 
or may not occur where there would be punctuation 
marks. The following are some of the conditions re- 
quiring the rhetorical pause : 

RHETORICAL PAUSES. 

1. Pause after an emphatic subject; as, 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me : 
But Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
And Brutus — is an honorable man. 



9 



Pause after a subject if compound or modified ; as, 
Faith, Hope and Love — waved their bright wings. 
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset — were seen ; 
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath flown. 
That host on the morrow — lay withered and strown. 



74 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

3. Pause after any specially emphatic word or words 

at the beginning of a sentence ; as, 

Great — is Diana of the Ephesians. 

Flashed — all their sabres bare. 

Silver and gold — have I none. 

Narrow — is the way that leadeth unto life. 

4. Pause before an adjective which follows the modi- 
fied noun; as, 

He was gifted with a mind — deep, active, and well stored 
with knowledge. 

It was a calculation — accurate to the last degree. 

5. An ellipsis demands a pause: as, 

Homer was the greater genius ; Virgil — the better artist. 

He quotes Milton often ; Spenser — never. 

Add to your faith, virtue; to virtue — knowledge. 

6. Words and phrases emphasized for the sake of 
contrast demand a pause following the contrasted 
part; as, 

Talent is serious, sober, grave, and respectable: tact — is all 
that, and more too. 

When propositions are contrasted, the pause after 
the last is shorter than after the others; as, 

No man despises rank, unless he is raised very much 

above or sunk very much below — the ordinary standard 

of humanity. 

7. Pause before and after explanatory or parentheti- 
cal words and phrases ; as, 

Homer claims — on every account — our first attention, as the 
father, not only of epic poetry, but also — in some measure — of 
poetry itself. 



PAUSES AND PARAPHRASING. 75 

8. Complete clauses or phrases, when not restrictive, 
demand a pause before and after them ; as, 

Milton says beautifully — that truth is as impossible to be 
soiled by an outward touch — as is the sunbeam. 

PARAPHRASING. 

A paraphrase expresses the meaning of a passage in 
different language from that in which it was originally 
expressed. The change made should be limited to the 
form or the expression : it should never extend to the 
substance or to the idea. 

The following are a few examples of paraphrasing : 

1. Change of order; as, 

In all speculations on men and on human affairs, it is of no 
small moment to distinguish things of accident from permanent 
causes. 

Changed : 

To distinguish things of accident from permanent causes, is 
of no small moment in all speculations on men and on human 
affairs. 

2. Change of expression; as, 

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable ; for 
the happy impute all their success to prudence and merit. 

Changed : 

The influence of fortune is admitted only by the unfortunate ; 
for the prosperous ascribe all their success to forethought and 
merit. 

3. Change of construction ; as, 

What passion cannot music raise and quell? 

Changed : 

There is no passion which music cannot raise and quell. 



NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 



4. Change of figure; as, 

The evil that men do lives after them ; 
The good is often interred with their bones. 

Changed : 

Men's evil deeds are recorded in brass; their good ones are 
often written on the sand. 

5. Figurative language changed into literal ; as, 

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray 
Had in her sober livery all things clad. 

Changed : 

Evening stole over the landscape, and all nature was covered 
with the gray shades of twilight. 



LESSON XIII. 
BEADING IN FIRST AND SECOND READER GRADES. 

Probably the most difficult work the teacher has to 
perform is teaching beginners to read. Only a few teach- 
ers seem to realize the conditions which confront them 
when the primer class first open the pages of their 
books and gaze upon characters, to them as unintel- 
ligible as are the characters of the Chinese language to 
the teacher. True it is, the child has learned to pro- 
nounce words, imitating those he has heard use them, 
but the printed characters representing those words 
are as unintelligible to him, perhaps, as they are to 
the parrot which has also been taught to pronounce 
words and frame sentences. 

In the work of teaching beginners to read, the true 
teacher soon discovers that there are ' ' lions in the 
way," a few of which may be pointed out. 



FIRST AND SECOND READER GRADES. 77 

The first serious obstacle met is the alphabet with its 
twenty-six letters representing forty-four different sounds. 
There should be, in a perfect alphabet, a character for 
every sound. 

The letters which compose a word are no indication 
of its pronunciation, as the following words will bear 
witness : rough, bough, slough, trough, and hiccough. 

This " lion " has stood in the way ever since the for- 
mation of the English language, and there seems at 
the present to be no relief or way of escape. A debt 
of gratitude will be due .the person who first invents, 
and will get into general use, a perfect English alphabet. 

Another ' ' lion in the way ' ' of the beginner is the 
different shapes of the same letters, large and small, 
now used, which are placed below for comparison : 

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQESTUYWXYZ 

abcdefgliij klmnopqrstuvwxyz 

Can the eye of the child, or can the teacher, detect 
any relationship of form existing between the first let- 
ter A and the lower-case a beneath it ? Or between the 
capital D and small d, with the projecting part of the 
letter changed to the other side of the stem ? 

In a large class of teachers in a normal institute, 
only a few were, able to print correctly on the black- 
board the small letters p, b, d, q, found in the term 
"bi-quadruple." The little boy who, after learning 
the name of the capital Gr, refused to call the small g 
by the same name "because it didn't look like the 
larger one," was exactly correct, and his opinion 
should be noted. 

How soon the children learn Cc, Oo, Ss, Xx, and 
those letters seen in the single form ! The lower-case 
letters, a. b, d, e, f, g, h, 1, in, n, q, r, and t, should be 



78 NORMAL INSTITUTE HEADER. 

discarded as soon as possible. This should be done for 
the sake of the children learning to read, as well as for 
the sake of the eyesight of those who read the public 
press. 

Of course the children may learn by the. word 
method, but words are made up of collections of let- 
ters, and the two collections of letters, or the words 
GET, get, look no more alike to the child than do the 
letters A a, in the alphabet above. 

Another ' ' lion in the way ' ' is the number of meth- 
ods used by different teachers, all of which are in due 
time inflicted on the child ; and this brings us to a con- 
sideration of these methods, which are the Alphabet, 
Phonic, Word, Object, Sentence and Eclectic methods, the 
principal points of which will be given, together with 
some of the objections to each. 

The Alphabet Method can lay claim, perhaps, to 
age, being the longest in use. In this method the 
letters are made the basis, and are taught first; after- 
ward, they are combined into words. 

Advantages are : 

1st. Letters must sooner or later be learned. 

2d. It is claimed that better spellers are produced. 

3d. It is claimed that the word will be remembered 
better, having been constructed from that which is 
known. 

Objections are : 

1st. The name of the letter is no indication of its 
sound in the word; as, a in hat. 

2d. It is claimed that words may as readily be 
learned as letters, hence the delay in progress caused 
by learning to name letters. 

In the Phonic Method the pupil is first taught 



FIRST AND SECOND READER GRADES. 79 

the elementary sound, and the character which repre- 
sents it as found in the phonic alphabet. This alpha- 
bet contains forty-four characters, each representing a 
separate sound, and would be, if in general use, a per- 
fect alphabet of the English language. It is perhaps 
the most consistent method, and if its characters could 
be universally adopted it would be the best. 

The following objections are urged against it: 

1st. That the new characters used to represent the 
sounds are just as arbitrary and unintelligible to the 
child as the common letters ; besides, there are so 
many of them. 

2d. That it is a difficult matter to get a child to give 
the sound of a letter alone. For example, when a child 
says "dog," his mind at once grasps the conception of 
a dog, and he knows what is meant; but now require 
him to give the sound of o in dog, and he gets no idea 
whatever. It is perfect nonsense to him. 

3d. That the propriety of teaching children a num- 
ber of arbitrary signs for which they will have no use 
in after life, is at least questionable. 

The Word Method takes the word as a basis of 
learning, and words are taught as wholes without ref- 
erence to the letters which compose them. The child 
is thus taught to read before he knows a single letter. 
The letters are afterwards taught by analyzing the 
words learned. 

Its advantages are: 

1st. Experience has proven that a child will recog- 
nize a word as readily as a letter. 

2d. Words represent ideas, and are not meaningless 
characters as letters are. 

3d. Ideas or objects represented by the word tend to 
fix them in the pupil's mind. 



80 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Objections are : 

1st. A word is not a simple form, but is complex, 
and many words are similar. 

2d. Very many words must be learned, — from three 
to five hundred in the ordinary first reader, while there 
are only twenty-six letters to be learned. 

In the Object Method the object, or picture, is 
taken as a basis from which to teach the word. It 
is really the word method illustrated by object or pic- 
ture, to help impress the idea upon the mind of the 
child. The object or picture is shown first to the 
child, and then the word, both printed and written, 
and the child is taught to distinguish between the ob- 
ject or picture, and the word itself. 

Advantages are : 

1st. The child can readily see the use of words. 

2d. The object impresses the word on the memory. 

Objections are much the same as to the ivord method, 
of which this is only a form. Many words, too, can- 
not be represented by this method. 

In the Sentence Method the sentence is taken as 
the basis, and thought is presented at once to the child 
by means of the complete sentence, which is later 
analyzed into words, letters, etc. The advantages 
claimed for this method are that many of the sim- 
pler words, such as is, to, the, and was, not being the 
names of objects, are unintelligible to the child unless 
in a sentence. The sentence is read in order to learn 
the word. Again, it is claimed that more natural read- 
ers are produced, because ideas are first grasped, then 
presented in words. 

Objections are: The mind of the child entering 
school cannot grasp the ideas contained in many sen- 



FIRST AND SECOND READER GRADES. 81 

tences ; also, that many difficult words must be learned 
in order to get the simpler words. 

All of the foregoing methods have had their earnest 
advocates, and the great mistake has been that one was 
used to the exclusion of all the rest. The best teachers 
of to-day have, with good judgment, selected the strong 
points of all these methods, and have combined them, 
forming what they are pleased to call the combined or 
eclectic method. 

The Eclectic Method of teaching reading com- 
bines the letter, word, object and sentence methods, and 
is being used by the best teachers at the present time. 
The method as used is as follows : 

1. Show the children some familiar object; as, a box. 

2. Ask questions about it. 

3. Ask them to give its name. 

4. Show them a picture of a box. 

5. Print the word box on the blackboard in colored 
crayon, or show them the word in the book or on a 
chart. A word or two each day is sufficient. 

6. Teach the distinction between the box, the picture 
of the box, and the ivord, box. 

7. Require the children to pronounce the word slowly 
so as to separate the sounds of the letters. 

8. Teach the names of the letters in the word in- 
cidentally. Write them in script, or show them the 
letters standing by themselves, and require the children 
to find them among a number of other letters, or from 
reading-boxes. 

9. Take away the first letter, and show them the 
picture of an ox. Tell them the word represents an ox. 



82 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Drill in the same manner as above on the sounds and 
names of the letters. 

10. Prefix another letter ; as,/, making the word fox, 
and drill in a similar manner. 

11. At first, use only words of two or three letters, 
and always such words as represent objects. 

12. As soon as a number of words are learned, com- 
bine them into easy sentences. It will be necessary, 
however, to learn a few words which are not the names 
of objects, before sentences can be made. 

13. Proceed in this manner until all the letters are 
learned. The sounds of the letters will be learned to 
a great extent, though the child may not be able to 
separate them. He will learn to see the use of the 
sound in the word, and this is what should be desired. 

14. Encourage the children to write the letters with 
pencil and chalk. 

15. Teach the diacritical marking of words, and 
show its use. 

The eclectic method should be used by all teachers 
of primary reading, and if supplemented by the in- 
genuity and tact of the teacher, good results will be 
secured. 

Diacritical marking of the letters is now taught 
by many teachers in the first-reader grade, and this is, 
we believe, approved by our best educators. So also 
should the script be taught from the very first. There 
are many advantages in teaching both script and dia- 
critical marking, which will be evident to every teacher. 

The pupil should learn that if he would read as well 
as he talks, he must learn to see and read, not separate 
words, but groups of words, as logical units; and he 



THIRD READER GRADE. 83 

must utter all the words in one group, with one im- 
pulse of mind and voice, just as he utters all the sylla- 
bles in one long word. In short, he must learn to see 
and read ideas. 

By all means have the children read naturally. 
Merely naming words is not reading. Many teachers 
would profit materially by sitting at the window and 
taking lessons in voice culture and elocution by listen- 
ing to the natural utterances of their children on the 
play-ground. 



LESSON XIV. 
READING IN THE THIRD-READER GRADE. 

Having opened the gateways of knowledge to the 
pupils by the use of the first and second readers, they 
become eager to gather information for themselves by 
means of reading. On this account the third reader 
should be a book of information. The great field of 
nature lies before the child. Its gateways having been 
unlocked by reading, the child's mind is ready to re- 
ceive its impressions, and to the judicious teacher a 
grand opportunity now opens for directing the investi- 
gations and explorations in proper channels. 

In no other grade is reading so sadly neglected, both 
in city and country, as in this third-reader grade. 
Specialists at high salaries are placed in the 'primary 
grades, charts and reading-boxes are purchased, and 
every energy put forth to teach them to read. So in 
the advanced grades in reading, special elocutionists 
are employed to teach them; but the neglected third- 
reader grade has no special teacher, and if in a city 
school an inexperienced teacher is employed, she is in- 



84 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

variably permitted to practice her profession upon this 
grade. More than that : an examination of the differ- 
ent series of readers which have been in use will con- 
vince anyone that the third reader is the weakest of the 
whole five books, and less care has been taken in its 
preparation. 

As to the methods to be used in this grade, fewer 
differences exist among teachers. The pupil has now 
mastered the pronunciation of seven or eight hundred 
words, — more, probably, than he will ever acquire, in 
the same time, during his whole life. 

Diacritical markings should be carefully studied, 
and their use explained. Faulty pronunciation should 
be corrected, and very much attention given to the ex- 
planation of thought and expression. 

Definition of words should be required, and syno- 
nyms given in order that the vocabulary may be in- 
creased as rapidly as possible. Pupils should be taught 
to use the dictionary. 

Language work should be made a specialty by re- 
quiring the pupils to reproduce orally the thought of 
the lesson, thus using the vocabulary which they have 
learned. In this work, correct forms of expression 
should be required, and all inaccuracies corrected. 

Punctuation should be taught, not only by referring 
to it in the text-book, but in the written exercises re- 
quired the punctuation should be carefully examined 
and corrected. 

Written work should be required, not only for prac- 
tice in penmanship, but that the pupils may have prac- 
tice in thought and composition. The pen should be 



FOURTH READER GRADE. 85 

used in this grade as much as possible, and neat work 
required. 

Methods which may be used in this grade of work 
are as follows : 

1. Have class close books, and, in turn, from mem- 
ory, reproduce the lesson orally. 

2. Kequire written reproductions of the lesson to be 
read in class. 

3. Require class to give definitions or synonyms to 
words in lesson. 

4. For drill in punctuation, have the class read in 
turn the parts of the lesson between the pauses. 

5. To cultivate attention, require the class to watch 
for errors while others read. 

6. Appoint a critic for position, one for voice, one 
for pronunciation, one for pauses, and one for expres- 
sion, — calling on them for reports as the pupils read. 



LESSON XV. 
BEADING IN THE FOURTH-READER GRADE. 

The work in this grade is much the same as in the 
preceding grade, only the pupils being more developed 
are forming opinions for themselves, hence the fourth 
reader should contain selections from the very best lit- 
erature. What the pupils of this grade read has much 
to do with the formation of their characters and opin- 
ions. There is no dearth of literature just suited to 
their needs. History, geography, biography and science 
are full of just what they need, and into these fields of 
learning they should be led by the teacher. Fairy and 
ghost stories should be carefully avoided, for when 



86 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

the world abounds with the true, and the school-life of 
the child is so short, there is no time for the untrue and 
unreal, nor should there be space allowed in any good 
fourth reader for such trashy literature. Of course 
such stories amuse, and please for the time ; but good 
results, in formation of character and right principles, 
are not obtained. From some of the fourth readers of 
forty years ago have been expunged, by so-called revi- 
sion, over twenty-five selections, — every one either 
moral or patriotic, and the effect of such revisions 
will be manifest. 

Tlie definition of words, -begun in the previous 
grade, should be kept up in the work of the fourth 
reader, and the work in language and grammar should 
be increased. 

A study of the principles of reading as found 
in nearly every fourth reader should not be neglected, 
and the pupils should be drilled in articulation, em- 
phasis, inflection, and modulation, explaining fully to 
them the terms pitch, force, form, rate, and stress. If 
these are neglected until the pupil reaches the fifth- 
reader grade, habits may be formed which will be diffi- 
cult to overcome. 

Supplementary reading should be introduced, 
and books of travel, history and biography will aid the 
teacher in making the lessons of the text-book bright 
and interesting. If there be no school library at hand, 
the pupils may at their homes find such books, which 
may be read and re-read by them. 

The teacher will find the work in reading in this 
grade very much restricted, from the fact that many 
new studies have been commenced ; but none of these 



FOURTH READER GRADE. 87 

studies, let it be remembered, will take the place of 
reading. So also historical readers, geographical read- 
ers, or biographical readers, should never supplant the 
ordinary text-book. Reading should be made a study 
by itself. 

Very much depends on the work done in this grade 
as a basis for future work in elocution and oratory. 
More orators are either made or ruined in this grade 
than in any other, from the fact that at this age the 
emotions are strong, impressions are lasting, tastes are 
being formed, and it is the province of the teacher to 
direct the tastes, guide the emotions, and watch that 
impressions for good only are formed. 

Just as, in the third-reader grade, the use of the dic- 
tionary should be encouraged, so in the work of this 
grade use the school library if there is one, and if none 
is provided lay plans to get one. 

In this grade the pupils will read, and the teacher 
should know what they read. 

The following methods when used judiciously in the 
class will be found helpful : 

1. Concert Reading, one pupil naming pauses. 

2. Individual Reading, class naming pauses. 

3. Boys and girls alternate, reading a sentence each. 

4. Reading until a mistake is made. 

5. Reading in pairs or by sections. 

6. Giving parts in dialogues to pupils. 

7. Choosing sides (similar to methods used in spell- 
ing contest). 

8. Looking-glass reading (class imitate one pupil). 

9. Naming pupil who reads until some other name 
is called. 

10. Voting for best readers, 



88 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

11. Dictating lesson, which they copy one day and 
read the next. 

12. Medley Reading (like a round in singing). 

13. Volunteer Reading. 

14. Giving examples gathered from the play-ground. 
( Let the children read from the blackboard what they 
have uttered when at play. There is certainly no ex- 
ercise better suited for teaching natural reading. ) 



LESSON XVI. 
READING IN THE FIFTH - READER GRADE. 

When the teacher comes to this grade of work, the 
helps are very abundant. In nearly every series of 
readers the fifth reader will be found to be the strongest 
book. Accompanying these there are many good works 
in elocution, which may be used to good advantage. 

A hindrance to the work in reading is the present 
crowded common-school course, causing the study of 
reading to be very much neglected. 

Another obstacle in the way is the vast amount of 
printed matter to be read, and which is read, by the 
pupils of this grade. The enticing novel, the daily 
press and the story paper are all doing their work to 
create a race of silent readers, boys and girls who, while 
they enjoy what they read themselves, cannot transmit 
this thought intelligently to others. 

Let it be remembered by the teacher that silent read- 
ing can never take the place of- oral reading, elocution, 
or oratory. The pupil who is not only a deep thinker, 
but who can present that thought forcibly to others, 
has a power which will help him all through life, and 
which places him at a decided advantage. 






FIFTH READER GRADE. gg 

The teacher of reading who develops these latent 
powers in the pupil does a grand work. The orator 
may be disappearing from the earth before the onward 
march of the public press, yet he fills his place ; and 
there are many instances, even in our time, of those 
who have risen to prominence as a result of the exer- 
cise of the power of oratory alone. 

The methods to be employed in this grade are 
varied, but nothing should supersede a good text-book. 
Of these there are many, and the pupils should be 
carefully drilled in the science of reading as found in 
almost any fifth reader. 

Constant drill in the principles of reading, voice 
culture and modulation are of special benefit to the 
pupil, and should not be neglected. 

Tlie recitation in this grade should be conducted 
in a separate room if possible, as the recitation if 
properly conducted will disturb other pupils in their 
study. As a separate room is an impossibility in the 
country school, a time in the day should be selected 
when the fewest number may be disturbed. 

Create a, friendly rivalry in the rendering of the selec- 
tion to be read; have the pupils take a position in 
front of the class and read the selection in turn. 

Kindly criticism by both teacher and pupils has 
its place in the recitation, but should be used care- 
fully, lest timid pupils become discouraged. 

Position in class should be criticised and cor- 
rected, as awkward positions are often permitted to 
escape in the effort to correct tone, voice, etc. 

Breathing exercises or tests in class as to the 
amount of breath each pupil uses in reading, have 



90 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

been found to be helpful. Selections should be given 
of the proper length to be read at one breath. Pupils 
should be tested as to their power to expand the chest. 
Many pupils will be found to be so dressed that expan- 
sion of the chest is impossible. 

Gymnastic exercises help to develop the muscles 
of the chest, and should be used whenever possible. 
Especially is this true in city schools, where the pupils 
lack outdoor exercise. Have the class lay aside the 
text-books at times and take such breathing, vocal and 
gymnastic exercises as are outlined in lesson eighteen 
of this book. 

Supplementary books should be carefully chosen, 
and should contain selections adapted to the work of 
developing the voice. Much of the literature now in- 
troduced into this grade of work is only fit for training 
for silent reading, or to study as literature. Such can 
never take the place of selections suited for the culti- 
vation of the voice. 



LESSON XVII. 
FIGURES OF SPEECH. 

Speech is the faculty of expressing thoughts by 
means of words or articulate sounds. 

A figure of speech is any deviation from a direct 
mode of expression. "Be ye wise as serpents" is a 
figure of speech. 

There are eleven figures of speech commonly 
used in the expression of thought; they are the simile, 
metaphor, personification, antithesis, synecdoche, climax, 
metonymy, irony, hyperbole i apostrophe , and allegory, 



FIGURES OF SPEECH. 91 

A simile expresses a likeness of one thing to an- 
other. 

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold. 

A metaphor speaks of an object as if it were an- 
other. 

Consistency, thou art a jewel. 
The wish is father to the thought. 

Personification represents inanimate objects as 
having life or personality. 

Winter ! ruler of the inverted year. 
The hills rejoice and clap their hands. 

Antithesis emphasizes an idea by a contrast or op- 
position of thought. 

Hatred stirreth up strifes ; but love covereth all sins. 
Wit laughs at things ; humor laughs with them. 

In synecdoche, a part is put for the whole or the 
whole for a part ; a species for genus or the genus for 
the species. 

He dare not come beneath my roof. 

Give us this day our daily bread. 

The horse is useful to man. 

Climax is a succession of statements, rising in 
strength until the last. 

We have complained ; we have petitioned; we have entreated ; 
we have SUPPLICATED. 

Strike — till the last armed foe expires; 
Strike — for your altars and your fires ; 
STRIKE — for the green graves of your sires; 
God — and your native land ! 

Anticlimax is a succession of statements, each one 
weaker than the one preceding; as, 

1 never will submit, — at least, I will not submit without a 
battle, and of course' if overpowered I may have to submit. 



92 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Metonymy is the use of the name of one object to 
represent some related object. 

Bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. 
Who steals my parse steals trash. 

Irony is the use of words so as to convey a meaning 
exactly opposite to what is said. 
Brutus is an honorable man. 
No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom will die with you. 

Hyperbole is a magnifying of objects beyond nat- 
ural bounds in order to make a statement more em- 
phatic. 

Rivers of waters did run down from mine eyes. 
The waves rolled mountain high. 

Apostrophe addresses some absent person or thing 
as though present and listening. 

Ye toppling crags of ice ! 
Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down, 
In mountainous overwhelming, come and crush me. 

Milton ! Thou shouldst be with us at this hour ! 

An allegory is a description of one thing under the 
image of another. 

EXAMPLE. 

God brought a vine out of Egypt, and planted it in Palestine. 

Note. — We know that God's people, Israel, is meant, although Israel is not 
mentioned. To make a simile, we would say: "Israel is like a vine brought from 
Egypt and planted in Palestine." To make a metaphor: "Israel is a vine brought 
from Egypt," etc. In allegory the application is left entirely to the imagination 
of the reader. 



VOCAL AND GYMNASTIC EXERCISES. 93 

LESSON XVIII. 
BREATHING.— VOCAL AND GYMNASTIC EXERCISES. 

BREATHING. 

Respiration or breathing is the process by which air 
is taken into the lungs and expelled from them. It is 
the motive power of the voice. 

Natural order of treatment: 

(a) What we breathe. 

(b) Why we breathe. 

(c) How we breathe. 

(d) Breathing exercises. 

What we breathe. Pure air is the article. It 
gives life, with health, happiness, and expectancy. 

Why we breathe. It is necessary to supply the 
system with oxygen ; to rid the body of waste matter ; 
and for the purpose of speech. Breathing also promotes 
the healthy development of the organs by which it is 
carried on. The intercostal muscles are strengthened, 
the lungs are rendered flexible and capacious, the 
muscles of the waist and back are exercised, and in 
fact the whole body is given additional symmetry and 
comeliness. 

How we breathe. In order to protect the throat 
and lungs from impurities, one should breathe through 
the nostrils. Animals, savages, and healthy children 
may be emulated in this. 

BREATHING EXERCISES. 

Too much importance cannot be attached to these 
exercises. 



94 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

1. Chest Breathing. — Relax the muscles of the chest. 
Take a full inspiration and expand the chest to its 
fullest capacity. Exhale gradually, 

2. Costal Breathing. — Distend the sides while inhaling, 
and relax gradually with slow and regular exhalation. 

3. Waist Breathing .-—Inhale with the view of expand- 
ing the entire circle of the waist. 

4. Dorsal Breathing. — -Inhale by endeavoring to thrust 
out the muscles of the back by the force of the air. 

5. Abdominal Breathing.- — Breathe deeply, expanding 
the abdomen in inhalation, and contracting it in ex- 
halation. 

6. Full Breathing. — This is a union of all the pre- 
vious exercises. The will should be exercised on all 
parts of the body simultaneously. 

7. Prolonged Breathing.- — Prolong the exercises of Full 
Breathing. 

8. Effusive Breathing .— Inhale naturally. Exhale on 
the sound of h, gently and gradually. 

9. Expulsive Breathing.— -Inhale as in Full Breathing, 
and expel the air forcibly but gradually upon the sound 
of h. 

10. Explosive Breathing.— T 'ake full breath, expel 
suddenly and with force in a whispered utterance the 
word Ha. 

VOCAL EXERCISES. 

1. AEIOU • • • • • Naturally. 

2. AEIOU • • t • t With Full Force. 



•{ 



A E - I ° U | Alternating High 
AEIOU J and Low - 

4. AEIOU Effusively. 



VOCAL AND GYMNASTIC EXERCISES. 95 

AEIOU mil Expulsively. 

AEIOTJ i iii i Explosively. 
AEIOU ^■■■^ With Swell. 
AEIOU mmmmmmmmmcm With Sustained Force. 

AEIOU — With Tremor. 

10. AEIOU ►►►►► With Full Breathing. 

MISCELLANEOUS VOCAL EXERCISES. 

1, The splendor falls on castle walls, 
And snowy summits old in story ; 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow ; set the wild echoes flying ; 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
Mark Haley : " Charco' ! charco' ! " 
Roguish Lad: ''Ark, ho! ark, ho ! " 
M. H. : " Charco' ! charco' ! " 
Wife : "Mark, ho ! Mark, ho ! " 
M. H.: " Charco'! charco'!" 
Baby: "Ah, go ! ah, go ! " 
Mark and Echo alternate, " Charco' I charco' ! " 

"Hark, O! hark, O!" 
" Charco' ! " — " Hark, O ! " Long may the sounds 
Proclaim Mark Haley's daily rounds. 

e 
ah ah 

2. aw aw 

Note.— Above represents pure chest, throat and head tones, but each should 
possess what is known as a chest resonance. 

3. Co, boss! co, boss! coi co! co ! 

4. Toll, toll, toll. Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah ! 

5. a, a, e, e, 1, l, o, o, u, u. 

6. Use various names of hotels as a calling exercise. 

7. Battalion, Right about !— Turn !— Forward !— Halt !— Fix 
bayonets ! — Quick ! — March ! — Double ! — Charge ! 



96 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER, 

8. " Young men, ahoy ! " 
"What is it?" 

" Beware ! beware ! the rapids are below you 1 See how fast 
you pass that point ! Up with the helm ! Now turn ! Pull 
hard ! Quick ! quick ! quick ! Pull for your lives ! Pull till 
the blood starts from your nostrils and the veins stand like 
whip-cords on your brow ! " 

9. W— p— b'— p | d'— t— d'— t ! v'— f— v'— f ! th'— til- 
th 7 — th i w' — v— v — w / j v / — w — w — v\ 

Note.— Pronounce the above distinctly, and accent the marked letters. 



a 


e 


i o 


u a 


e i 


o u 


10. a 


e i 
a 


o 
e 


u a 


e i 
u 


o u 




i o 






a 


e 


i o 


u 






a 


e 


i o 


u 










a a 










a 


a 










a 


a 






a 






a 




Note.— Use first, third, 


fifth and 


eighth tones of the scale in Exercise 10. 








Charcoal, 


charcoal, 


charcoal. 


Charcoal, 


charcoal, charcoal. 







Charcoal, charcoal, charcoal. 

Charcoal, charcoal, * charcoal, 

ol, Charcoal, charco 
o o 

o o 

Charco ol, Charcoal. 

Note.— First three words should be read an octave lower than the next three. 
Eead the second pair of lines with a change in pitch of an octave in each. In the 
third make a gradual change of an octave in each as indicated by the figure. 

TONE WOEDS OE SOUND TO SENSE WOEDS. 

The correct sounding of many words is indicative of 
their meaning, as — Dash, round, noble, rich, sublime, 
poor, glory, rough, ragged, crash, murmur, roar, toll, 
bells, roll, thunder, howl, growl, boom, gush, titter, 
bound. 

Enunciation is the reaching power of the voice. 



STUDY OF LITERATURE. 



LESSON XIX. 



STUDY OF LITER ATTTKE. 



1. Ages . .< 



2. Kinds. 



BLACKBOARD OUTLINE . 

1. Age of Elizabeth. 

2. Age of Milton. 

3. Age of Queen Anne. 

4. Age of Johnson. 

5. Age of Scott. 

6. Age of Victoria. 



1. Poetry. < 



1. Epic ..... 

2. Dramatic. 



3. Lyric. 



2. Prose 



S 1. Hero. 
* 1 2. Plot. 

j 1. Tragedy. 
' | 2. Comedy. 

1. Sacred. 

2. Heroic. 

3. Moral. 

4. Amatory. 
j^5. Comic. 

j 1. Elegy. 
' | 2. Epitaph. 

j 1. Eclogues. 
" | 2. Idyls. 

j 1. Instructive. 
' | 2. Meditative. 

j 1. Letters. 

| 2. Newspapers. 

(1. Editorials. 
Original thought J 2. Essays. 

| 3. Discourses. 

(1. History. 
Records ........... 1 2. Biography. 

( 3. Travel. 

. „ Book. 

4. Reviews. ..... . . . ■{ 2. Editorial. 

News. 

( 1. Historical. 

5. Fiction \2. Domestic. 

, Religions. 



4. Elegiac. . 

5. Pastoral. 

6. Didactic. 

1. News. . . 



■II 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

In teaching this important and fascinating subject, 
the instructor should aim to create in the minds of the 
pupils an interest in literature that will be productive 
of earnest and enthusiastic study of the writings of 



98 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

master minds, and lie should also aid them in securing 
power and determination that will assist them in ac- 
quiring and appreciating the best thought production 
of the ages. As the work progresses, less attention 
may be given to biograjihies and more importance 
attached to the productio?is of authors. A thorough 
acquaintance with the masterpieces of a writer makes 
one familiar with the author and his environments. 
Literature may, for the sake of convenience in study, 
be classified into the following ages : 

Age of Elizabeth.— Study historical events of her 
reign; social conditions; chief writers, and leading 
works of each. Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Mer- 
chant of Venice, Hamlet, or Macbeth, developing be- 
fore the class the characteristics of the drama — unities 
of time, place, and action; function of each act, cli- 
max, culmination, status. Luther, Calvin, Bacon and 
Shakespeare may be considered here, but strictly speak- 
ing, they more properly belong to the next age. 

Age of Milton.— Historical events, social condi- 
tions, chief writers, leading works. Study Cromwell 
and read Comus, Lycidas, Hymn on the Nativity, or 
L'Allegro, and II Penseroso. 

Age of Queen Anne. — Period of the " correct poets " 
and beginning of the social essay. Read Addison's 
Vision of Mirza, Sir Roger de Coverly Papers, Pope's 
Essay on Criticisms, and study the lives of Pope and 
Addison. 

Age of Johnson. — Observe the important features 
of this age: Relative predominance of prose, develop- 
ment of history, the rise of the novel, advancement in 
oratory, change in sentiment of poetry. Study the 
life of Johnson, and read Burns's Cotter's Saturday 
Night, or To a Mouse, A Man's a Man for a' That, 



STUDY OF LITERATURE. 99 

Highland Mary, To a Mountain Daisy; Gray's Elegy 
in a Country Church-yard; Goldsmith's Deserted Vil- 
lage. 

Age of Scott.— Closely study the poetry of this 
age, and illustrate the difference between poetry and 
prose. Study for imitative suggestiveness, for the play 
of emotions, and for the sources of poetic inspiration. 
Teacher should select poerns such as will, in his hands, 
best develop these points. This age is especially rich 
in prose literature. Encourage pupils to read and 
study some of Charles Lamb's productions. 

Age of Victoria. — Study the writings of Mrs. Brown- 
ing, Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle, George Eliot. Read 
Tennyson's Lilian and Mariana for word-painting; 
Dora for narrative force; Ode on the Death of the 
Duke of Wellington ; Princess; Launcelot; and Elaine. 
If the members of the class be strong, they may read 
In Memoriam, or Maud, 



Poetry, to be worthy of the name, must be in the 
form of verse and poetical in its essence. It is the 
product of an excited and creative imagination, so ar- 
ranged as to please the reader. The following kinds 
maybe found in Hie literature of the past and present: 

Epic, dramatic, lyric, elegiac, pastoral, and didactic. 

Epic poetry is a recital of heroic or valorous deeds 
as found in such poems as Homer's Iliad, Milton's 
Paradise Lost, etc. It is essential that there be a he?-o, 
around whom cluster many actors in some complicated 
plot. Such poems as Sheridan's Ride, Paul Revere's 
Ride, Ride of Jennie McNeal, are examples of epic 
poetry. 



100 NORMAL INSTITUTE HEADER. 

Dramatic poetry is very much like the epic, only 
more tragic in its character, and represents actions as 
actually transpiring. There are two principal kinds — 
the tragedy, and comedy. 

The tragedy is the more serious, and appeals to the 
strongest passions of the soul. Poems which relate to 
scenes of suffering, violence, or death, belong to this 
class. 

The comedy seeks to amuse, and deals with the more 
common occurrences of life. It abounds in ridicule 
and satire, and while tragedy often ends with the death 
of its hero, marriage or good fortune awaits the hero of 
comedy. Shakespeare's writings are the best examples 
of both varieties of dramatic poetry. 

Lyric poetry meant originally poetry to be accom- 
panied by the lyre ; hence it abounds in song. 

There are five varieties found in odes or songs — the 
sacred, heroic, moral, amatory, and comic. Psalms and 
hymns compose the sacred and patriotic poems illus- 
trate the heroic, while the moral would comprise such 
as Collins 's ode on the Passions, etc. Amatory odes 
abound in the love songs of all nations and ages, while 
the comic would be represented in the writings of Bret 
Harte. 

Elegiac poetry is of a sad or mournful strain, and 
is found in the poems which recount the virtues of 
some one dead. Gray's Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard or Tennyson's In Memoriam are good examples. 

The Epitaph belongs to this class, and is a short 
elegy inscribed on a monument. 

Pastoral poetry is found in a class of poems which 
illustrate shepherd or rustic life. The writings of Virgil 
abound with these, as do the writings of the more mod- 



STUDY OF LITERATURE. 101 

em Spenser. Of the American poets, James Whitcomb 
Riley and Will Carleton take rank among pastoral 
writers. 

Eclogues and Idyls also belong to this class. 

Didactic poetry is of the kind designed to impart 
instruction. It is abundant, and such poems as Pope's 
Essay on Man, Bryant's Thanatopsis and Young's Night 
Thoughts illustrate well this class of poetry. 

Prose is a term applied to all literature which is 
not in verse. In prose, thought is presented in a nat- 
ural manner, in distinction from the inverted forms so 
common in poetry. 

All prose literature may be classified into the follow- 
ing divisions : News, original thought, records, reviews, 
&nd fiction. 

News may be classified into private and public, or 
the ordinary letter and the item intended for the news- 
paper. Accuracy, condensation and perspicuity are 
characteristics necessary to either. Accuracy, because 
exact truth is wanted; condensation, because of the 
great amount of matter; and perspicuity, because 
news is often gathered rapidly from headings or head- 
lines. 

Original thought comprises a class of literature 
which may be grouped under three heads, viz. : editori- 
als, essays, and discourses. All these contain alike the 
element of originality, but differ as to the medium 
used in communicating the thought to others. They 
consist of the opinions of their authors, printed, read 
or delivered through the medium of speech. 

Records comprise all literature intended to record 
the various occurrences of individuals or nations, and 



102 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

all books of history, biography or travel come under this 
head. 

Literature of this class is very abundant ; and as its 
chief office is to impart instruction, it is generally pre- 
sented in a concise form and in a chronological order. 

History is a record of events which are of national 
importance, and its statements should be accurate, 
impartial, and free from prejudice. 

Biography and travel include books which record the 
doings and adventures of individuals, and very often 
compose a part of history, especially when the indi- 
vidual, their subject, is a noted person. Memoirs also 
come under this head, and are a species of incomplete 
history. 

Reviews are in reality lengthy editorials written by 
one who has formed his opinions from reading other 
articles or books, upon which they are merely com- 
ments. This class of literature is found in "the best 
magazines of the present day. Reviews as a species of 
literature had their origin in the establishment of the 
Edinburgh Review, in 1802. 

Fiction covers quite a field of literature, in which 
may be found novels of all classes, also the ordinary 
story-paper. 

Books of fiction have been common in all ages. His- 
torical, religious, and social works of fiction are abun- 
dant. Walter Scott's novels are historical, Bunyan's 
Pilgrim's Progress religious, and Dickens's works refer 
to social life. In all novels a moral lesson should be 
learned. The reading of fiction should only occupy 
the time when truth has been read. 

The taste for good literature should be cultivated, 
for a powerful influence is exerted upon the pupil by 
what is read. 



SELECTIONS. 



OUR COUNTRY'S CALL. 

High Pitch, Moderate Rate, Energetic Force, Explosive Form. 

Lay down the ax ; fling by the spade ; 

Leave in its track the toiling plow ; 
The rifle and the bayonet-blade 

For arms like yours were fitter now ; 
And let the hands that ply the pen 

Quit the light task, and learn to wield 
The horseman's crooked brand, and rein 

The charger on the battle-field. 

Our country calls ; away ! away ! 

To where the blood-stream blots the green. 
Strike to defend the gentlest sway 

That Time in all his course has seen. 
See, from a thousand coverts — -see, 

Spring the armed foes that haunt her track ; 
They rush to smite her down, and we 

Must beat the banded traitors back. 

Ho ! sturdy as the oaks ye cleave, 

And moved as soon to fear and flight, 
Men of the glade and forest ! leave 

Your woodcraft for the field of fight. 
The arms that wield the ax must pour 

An iron tempest on the foe ; 
His serried ranks shall reel before 

The arm that lays the panther low. 

(103) 



104 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

And ye, who breast the mountain storm 

By grassy steep or highland lake, 
Come, for the land ye love, to form 

A bulwark that no foe can break. 
Stand, like your own gray cliffs that mock 

The whirlwind, stand in her defense : 
The blast as soon shall move the rock 

As rushing squadrons bear thee thence. 

And ye, whose homes are by her grand 

Swift rivers, rising far away, 
Come from the depth of her green land, 

As mighty in your march as they; 
As terrible as when the rains 

Have swelled them over bank and bourne, 
With sudden floods to drown the plains 

And sweep along the woods uptorn. 

And ye, who throng, beside the deep, 

Her ports and hamlets of the strand, 
In number like the waves that leap 

On his long-murmuring marge of sand — 
Come, like that deep, when o'er his brim 

He rises, all his floods to pour, 
And flings the proudest barks that swim, 

A helpless wreck, against the shore ! 

Few, few were they whose swords of old 

Won the fair land in which we dwell ; 
But we are many, we who hold 

The grim resolve to guard it well. 
Strike for that broad and goodly land, 

Blow after blow, till men shall see 
That Might and Right move hand in hand, 

And glorious must their triumph be ! 

— Bryant. 



SELECTIONS. 105 

REPLY TO HAYNE. 

Sarcastic Style, Middle Pitch, Energetic Force, Explosive Form. 
The honorable member complained that I had slept 
on his speech. I must have slept on it, or not slept at 
all. The moment the honorable member sat down, his 
friend from Missouri rose, and with much honeyed 
commendation of the speech, suggested that the im- 
pressions which it had produced were too charming 
and delightful to be disturbed by other sentiments or 
other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should ad- 
journ. Would it have been quite amiable in me, sir, 
to interrupt this excellent good feeling ? Must I not 
have been absolutely malicious, if I could have thrust 
myself forward to destroy sensations thus pleasing ? 
Was it not much better and kinder, both to sleep upon 
them myself, and to allow others, also, the pleasure of 
sleeping upon them ? But if it be meant, by sleeping 
upon his speech, that I took time to prepare a reply to 
it, it is quite a mistake; owing to other engagements, 
I could not employ even the interval between the ad- 
journment of the Senate and its meeting the next 
morning, in attention to the subject of this debate. 
Nevertheless, sir, the mere matter of fact is undoubt- 
edly true — I did sleep on the gentleman's speech, and 
slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his speech 
of yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is quite 
possible that, in this respect, also, I possess some 
advantage over the honorable member, attributable, 
doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my part; for, 
in truth, I slept upon his speeches remarkably well. 
But the gentleman inquires why he was made the ob- 
ject of such a reply. Why was he singled out ? If an 
attack had been made on the East, he, he assures us, 



106 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

did not begin it — it was the gentleman from Missouri. 
Sir, I answer the gentleman's speech, because I hap- 
pened to hear it; and because, also, I choose to give 
an answer to that speech, which, if unanswered, I 
thought most likely to produce injurious impressions. 
I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer 
of the bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, 
and it was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring 
him to his just responsibility without delay. But, sir, 
this interrogatory of the honorable member was only 
introductory to another. He proceeded to ask me 
whether I had turned upon him in this debate from 
the consciousness that I should find an overmatch if I 
ventured on a contest with his friend from Missouri. 
If, sir, the honorable member ex gratia modesties, had 
chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him 
a compliment, without intentional disparagement to 
others, it would have been quite according to the 
friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful 
to my own feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who 
esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occa- 
sional, or more serious and deliberate, which may be 
bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden 
from themselves. But the tone and manner of the 
gentleman's question forbid me thus to interpret it. I 
am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a 
civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and dis- 
paragement, a little of the loftiness of asserted superi- 
ority, which does not allow me to pass it over without 
notice. It was put as a question for me to answer, and 
so put as if it were difficult for me to answer, whether 
I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for 
myself in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that is ex- 
traordinary language, and an extraordinary tone for 
the discussions of this body. 



SELECTIONS. 107 

Matches and overmatches ! Those terms are more 
applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter for other 
assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman seems to for- 
get where and what we are. This is a Senate; a Sen- 
ate of equals ; of men of individual honor and personal 
character, and of absolute independence. We know no 
masters ; we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall 
for mutual consultation and discussion, not an arena 
for the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, sir, 
as a match for no man ; I throw the challenge of de- 
bate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since the honor- 
able member has put the question in a manner that 
calls for an answer, I will give him an answer ; and I 
tell him that, holding myself to be the humblest of the 
members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his 
friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by 
the arm of his friend from South Carolina, that need 
deter even me from espousing what opinions I may 
choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may 
choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see 
fit to say on the floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered 
as matter of commendation or compliment, I should 
dissent from nothing which the honorable member 
might say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any 
pretensions of my own. But when put to me as matter 
of taunt, I throw it back, and say to the gentleman 
that he could possibly say nothing less likely than 
such a comparison to wound my pride of personal 
character. The anger of its tone rescued the remark 
from intentional irony, which otherwise, probably, 
would have been its general acceptation. But, sir, if 
it be imagined that by this mutual quotation and com- 
mendation ; if it be supposed that, by casting the char- 
acters of the drama, assigning to each his part — to 
one the attack, to another the cry of onset — or if it be 



108 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

thought that by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated 
victory any laurels are to be won here ; if it be imag- 
ined, especially, that any or all these things will shake 
any purpose of mine, — I can tell the honorable mem- 
ber, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that 
he is dealing with one of whose temper and character 
he has much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself 
on this occasion — I hope on no occasion — to be be- 
trayed into any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I 
trust I never shall allow myself to be, into crimination 
and recrimination, the honorable member may, per- 
haps, find that in that contest there will be blows to 
take as well as blows to give; that others can state 
comparisons as significant, at least, as his own; and 
that his impunity may, perhaps, demand of him what- 
ever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I 
commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources. 

— Daniel Webster. 



[ The following selection contains a great variety of Emphasis and several dif- 
ferent combinations.] 

THE PAINTER OF SEVILLE. 

Moderate Rate, Middle and High Pitch, Effusive Form. 

'Twas morning in Seville, and brightly beamed 
The early sunlight in one chamber there ; 

Showing where'er its glowing radiance gleamed, 
Rich, varied beauty. 'Twas the study where 

Murillo, the famed painter, came to share 
With young aspirants his long-cherished art, 

To prove how vain must be the teacher's care, 
Who strives his unbought knowledge to impart, 
The language of the soul, the feeling of the heart. 






SELECTIONS. 109 

The pupils came, and glancing round, 
Mendez upon his canvas found, 
Not his own work of yesterday, 
But, glowing in the morning ray, 
A sketch, so rich, so pure, so bright, 

It almost seemed that there were given 
To glow before his dazzled sight, 

Tints and expression warm from heaven. 
'Twas but a sketch — the Virgin's head — 
Yet was unearthly beauty shed 
Upon the mildly beaming face ; 
The lip, the eye, the flowing hair, 
Had separate, yet blended grace : 

A poet's brightest dream was there ! 

Murillo entered, and amazed, 

On the mysterious painting gazed : 

" Whose work is this ? — speak, tell me ! — he 

Who to his aid such power can call," 
Exclaimed the teacher eagerly, 

' ' Will yet be master of us all ; 
Would I had done it ! — Ferdinand ! 
Isturitz, Mendez! — say, whose hand 
Among ye all ? " With half-breathed sigh, 
Each pupil answered, " 'Twas not I!" 

" How came it then ? " impatiently 
Murillo cried. " But we shall see, 
Ere long into this mystery. 
Sebastian!" 

At the summons came 

A bright-eyed slave, 
Who trembled at the stem rebuke 

His master gave. 



110 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

For, ordered in that room to sleep, 
And faithful guard o'er all to keep, 
Murillo bade him now declare 
What rash intruder had been there, 
And threatened — if he did not tell 
The truth at once — the dungeon-cell. 

" Thou answerest not," Murillo said; 
( The boy had stood in speechless fear.) 

" Speak on ! " At last he raised his head, 
And murmured, " No one has been here." 
" 'T is false ! " Sebastian bent his knee, 

And clasped his hands imploringly, 
And said, " I swear it, none but me ! " 

" List ! " said his master. " I would know 
Who enters here. There have been found 
Before, rough sketches strewn around; 

By whose bold hand, 't is yours to show. 
See that to-night strict watch you keep, 
Nor dare to close your eyes in sleep. 

If on to-morrow morn you fail 
To answer what I ask, 

The lash shall force you — do you hear ? 
Hence! to your daily task." 



'T was midnight in Seville; and faintly shone, 

From one small lamp, a dim uncertain ray 
Within Murillo 's study. All were gone 

Who there, in pleasant tasks or converse gay, 
Passed cheerfully the morning hours away. 

'T was shadowy gloom, and breathless silence, save, 
That to sad thoughts and torturing fear a prey, 

One bright-eyed boy was there — Murillo' s little slave. 



SELECTIONS. Ill 

Almost a child — that boy had seen 

Not thrice five summers yet, 
But genius marked the lofty brow, 

O'er which his locks of jet 
Profusely curled; his cheek's dark hue 
Proclaimed the warm blood flowing through 
Each throbbing vein, a mingled tide, 
To Africa and Spain allied. 

"Alas! what fate is mine! " he said: 

' ' The lash if I refuse to tell 
Who sketched those figures ; if I do, 

Perhaps e'en more — the dungeon-cell ! " 
He breathed a prayer to Heaven for aid : 
It came — for soon in slumber laid, 
He slept, until the dawning day 
Shed on his humble couch its ray. 

"I '11 sleep no more ! " he cried ; " and now 
Three hours of freedom I may gain 

Before my master comes ; for then 
I shall be but a slave again. 

Three hours of blessed freedom ! how 

Shall I employ them? — ah! e'en now 

The figure on that canvas traced 

Must be — yes, it must be effaced. " 

He seized a brush — the morning light 

Gave to the head a softened glow ; 
Gazing enraptured on the sight, 

He cried, " Shall I efface it ? No ! 
That breathing lip ! that burning eye ! 
Efface them ? — I would rather die ! " 



112 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

The terror of the humble slave 

Gave place to the o'erpowering flow 
Of the high feelings Nature gave — 

Which only gifted spirits know. 
He touched the brow — the lip — it seemed 

His pencil had some magic power ; 
The eye with deeper feeling beamed — 

Sebastian then forgot the hour ! 
Forgot his master, and the threat 

Of punishment still hanging o'er him ; 
For, with each touch, new beauties met 

And mingled in the face before him. 

At length 't was finished : rapturously 
He gazed — could aught more beauteous be! 
Awhile absorbed, entranced he stood, 
Then started — horror chilled his blood ! 
His master and the pupils all 

Were_ there, e'en at his side! 
The terror-stricken slave was mute — 

Mercy would be denied, 
E'en could he ask it — so he deemed, 
And the poor boy half lifeless seemed. 

Speechless, bewildered, for a space 
They gazed upon that perfect face, 

Each with an artist's joy. 
At length Murillo silence broke, 
And with affected sternness spoke : 

"Who is your master, boy ? " 
"You, Senor," said the trembling slave. 
"Nay, who, I mean, instruction gave, 
Before that Virgin's head you drew ? " 
Again he answered, "Only you." 



SELECTIONS. 118 

"I gave you none!" Murillo cried. 
"But I have heard," the boy replied, 

"What you to others said." 
"And more than heard," in kinder tone, 
The painter said; " 't is plainly shown 

That you have profited." 

"What [to his pupils] is his meed — 

Reward, or punishment ? " 
" Reward, reward 1 " they warmly cried. 

(Sebastian's ear was bent 
To catch the sounds he scarce believed, 
But with imploring look received.) 
"What shall it be ? " They spoke of gold, 

And of a splendid dress ; 
But still unmoved Sebastian stood, 

Silent and motionless. 

" Speak! " said Murillo, kindly; " choose 

Your own reward — what shall it be ? 
Name what you wish, I '11 not refuse : 

Then speak at once and fearlessly." 
" Oh ! if I dared ! ' '— Sebastian knelt, 

And feelings he could not control 
(But feared to utter even then) 

With strong emotion shook his soul. 

" Courage! " his master said, and each 
Essayed, in kind, half-whispered speech, 
To soothe his overpowering dread. 
He scarcely heard, till some one said, 

" Sebastian — ask — you have your choice, 
Ask for your freedom!" At the word, 

The suppliant strove to raise his voice : 



114 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

At first but stifled sobs were heard, 

And then his prayer — breathed fervently — 

" master, make my father free ! " 
"Him and thyself, my noble boy! " 

Warmly the painter cried. 
Raising Sebastian from his feet, 

He pressed him to his side. 
" Thy talents rare, and filial love, 

E'en more have fairly won ; 
Still be thou mine by other bonds — 

My pupil and my son." 

Murillo knew, e'en when the words 

Of generous feeling passed his lips, 
Sebastian's talents soon must lead 

To fame that would his own eclipse ; 
And, constant to his purpose still, 

He joyed to see his pupil gain, 
Beneath his care, such matchless skill 

As made his name the pride of Spain. 

— Susan Wilson. 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 

Orotund Voice, Sloiv Rate, Middle Pitch, Effusive Form. 

He is fallen ! We may now pause before that splen- 
did prodigy which towered among us like some ancient 
ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence 
attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon 
his throne, a sceptered hermit, wrapt in the solitude of 
his own originality. A mind bold, independent, and 
decisive ; a will despotic in its dictates ; an energy that 
distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every 
touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordi- 



SELECTIONS. 115 

nary character; the most extraordinary, perhaps, that 
in the annals of this world ever rose or reigned or fell. 

Flung into life in the midst of a revolution that 
quickened every energy of a people who acknowledge 
no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by 
birth, and a scholar by charity. With no friend but 
his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed 
into the lists where rank and wealth and genius had 
arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as 
from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but 
interest, acknowledged no criterion but success, wor- 
shipped no God but ambition, and, with an Eastern 
devotion, he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. 

Subsidiary to this there was no creed that he did not 
profess — there was no opinion that he did not promul- 
gate. In the hope of a dynasty he upheld the Crescent ; 
for the sake of a divorce he bowed before the Cross ; the 
orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of 
the Republic, and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the 
ruins both of the throne and tribune he reared the 
throne of his despotism. A professed Catholic, he im- 
prisoned the pope; a pretended patriot, he impover- 
ished the country; and, in the name of Brutus, he 
grasped without remorse and wore without shame the 
diadem of the Csesars ! Through this pantomime of 
policy, fortune played the clown to his caprices. At 
his touch crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems 
vanished, the wildest theories took the color of his 
whim, and all that was venerable and all that was 
novel changed places with the rapidity of a drama. 

Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of vic- 
tory; fris flight from Egypt confirmed his destiny; 
ruin itself only elevated him to empire. But if his 
fortune was great, his genius was transcendent. De- 



116 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

cision flashed upon his counsels, and it was the same 
to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects his 
combinations appeared perfectly impossible, his plans 
perfectly impracticable; but in his hands simplicity 
marked their development and success vindicated their 
adoption. His person partook the character of his 
mind; if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the 
other never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacle 
that he did not surmount, space no opposition that he 
did not spurn, and, whether amid Alpine rocks, Ara- 
bian sands, or Polar snows, he seemed proof against 
peril, and empowered with ubiquity 1 

The whole continent trembled at beholding the 
audacity of his designs and the miracle of their exe- 
cution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his 
performance; romance assumed the air of history; 
nor was there aught too incredible for belief or too 
fanciful for expectation when the world saw a subal- 
tern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most 
ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became 
commonplaces in his contemplation. Kings were his 
people, nations were his outposts, and he disposed of 
courts and crowns and camps and churches and cabi- 
nets as if they were titular dignitaries of the chess- 
board. Amid all these changes he stood immutable 
as adamant. 

It mattered little whether in the field or in the 
drawing-room, with the mob or the levee, wearing the 
Jacobin bonnet or the iron crown, banishing a Bra- 
ganza or espousing a Hapsburg, dictating peace on a 
raft to the Czar of Russia or contemplating defeat at 
the gallows of Leipsic, he was still the same military 
despot. 

In this wonderful combination his affectation of 



SELECTIONS. 117 

literature must not be omitted. The jailer of the 
press, he affected the patronage of letters; the pro- 
scriber of books, he encouraged philosophy; the perse- 
cutor of authors and the murderer of printers, he yet 
pretended to the protection of learning. Such a med- 
ley of contradictions, and at the same time such an 
individual consistency, were never united in the same 
character. A royalist, a republican, and an emperor, 
a Mohammedan, a Catholic, and a patron of the syna- 
gogue, a subaltern and a sovereign, a traitor and a 
tyrant, a Christian and an infidel, — he was, through all 
his vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible 
original, the same mysterious, incomprehensible self, 
— the man without a model and without a shadow. 

— Wendell Phillips. 



THE SIOUX CHIEF'S DAUGHTER. 

Middle and High Pitch, Moderate Pate, Effusive and Explosive 
Form. 

Two gray hawks ride the rising blast; 
Dark cloven clouds drive to and fro 
By peaks pre-eminent in snow ; 
A sounding river rushes past, 
So wild, so vortex-like, and vast. 

A lone lodge tops the windy hill ; 
A tawny maiden, mute and still, 
Stands waiting at the river's brink, 
As weird and wild as you can think. 

A mighty chief is at her feet ; 

She does not heed him wooing so — 

She hears the dark, wild waters flow ; 



118 NORMAL INSTITUTE HEADER. 

She waits her lover, tall and fleet, 
From far gold-fields of Idaho, 
Beyond the beaming hills of snow. 

He comes ! The grim chief springs in air — 

His brawny arm, his blade is bare. 

She turns ; she lifts her round, dark hand ; 

She looks him fairly in the face ; 

She moves her foot a little pace 

And says, with coldness and command : 

" There's blood enough in this lorne land. 

But see ! a test of strength and skill, 

Of courage and fierce fortitude ; 

To breast and wrestle with the rude 

And storm-born waters, now I will 

Bestow you both Stand either side ! 

Take you my left, tall Idaho ; 

And you, my burly chief, I know 

Would choose my right. Now peer you low 

Across the waters wild and wide. 

See ! leaning so this morn, I spied 

Red berries dip yon farther side. 

See, dipping, dripping in the stream, 

Twin boughs of autumn berries gleam ! 

" Now this, brave men, shall be the test: 
Plunge in the stream, bear knife in teeth 
To cut yon bough for bridal wreath. 
Plunge in ! and he who bears him best, 
And brings yon ruddy fruit to land 
The first, shall have both heart and hand." 

Then one threw robes with sullen air, 
And wound red fox-tails in his hair, 



SELECTIONS. 119 

But one with face of proud delight 
Entwined a crest of snowy white. 

She sudden gave 
The sign, and each impatient brave 
Shot sudden in the sounding wave ; 
The startled waters gurgled round, 
Their stubborn strokes kept sullen sound. 
Now side by side the rivals plied, 
Yet no man wasted word or breath ; 
All was still as stream of death. 
Now side by side their strength was tried, 
They near the shore at last ; and now 
The foam flies spouting from a face 
That laughing lifts from out the race. 

The race is won, the work is done! 
She sees the climbing crest of snow ; 
She knows her tall, brown Idaho. 
She cried aloud, she laughing cries, 
And tears are streaming from her eyes : 

"O splendid, kingly Idaho, 

I kiss his lifted crest of snow ; 

I see him clutch the bended bough ! 

'Tis cleft — he turns ! is coming now 

My tall and tawny king, come back 1 

Come swift, O sweet ! Why falter so ? [track? 

Come ! Come ! What thing has crossed your 

I kneel to all the gods I know. 

O come, my manly Idaho ! 

Great Spirit, what is this I dread ? 

AVhy, there is blood ! the wave is red ! 

That wrinkled chief, outstripped in race, 

Dives down, and, hiding from my face, 



120 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Strikes underneath ! . . . . He rises now ! 

Now plucks my hero's berry bough, 

And lifts aloft his red fox-head, 

And signals he has won for me. 

Hist ! Softly ! Let him come and see. 

" O come ! my white crowned hero, come ! 
O come ! and I will be your bride, 
Despite yon chieftain's craft and might. 
Come back to me ! my lips are dumb, 
My hands are helpless with despair : 
The hair you kissed, my long strong hair, 
Is reaching to the ruddy tide, 
That you may clutch it when you come. 

"How slow he buffets back the wave ! 
O God, he sinks 1 O heaven ! save 
My brave, brave boy. He rises ! See I 
Hold fast, my boy! Strike! strike for me! 
Strike straight this way ! Strike firm and strong ! 
Hold fast your strength. It is not long — 
O God, he sinks ! He sinks ! Is gone ! 
His face has perished from my sight ! 

"And did I dream, and do I wake ? 

Or did I wake and now but dream ? 

And what is this crawls from the stream ? 

O here is some mad, mad mistake ! 

What you ! The red fox at my feet ? 

You first, and failing from a race ? 

What ! you have brought me berries red ? 

What ! you have brought your bride a wreath ? 

You sly red fox with wrinkled face — 

That blade has blood, between your teeth ! 



SELECTIONS. 121 

" Lie still ! lie still ! till I lean o'er 

And clutch your red blade to the shore. . . . 

Ha ! Ha 1 Take that ! and that ! and that ! 

Ha 1 Ha I So, through your coward throat 

The* full day shines! . . . Two fox-tails float 

And drift and drive adown the stream. 

" But what is this ? What snowy crest 

Climbs out the willows of the west, 

All weary, wounded, bent, and slow. 

And dripping from his streaming hair ? 

It is — it is my Idaho I 

His feet are on the land, and fair 

His face is lifting to my face, 

For who shall now dispute the race ? 

" The gray hawks pass, love I two doves 
O'er yonder lodge shall coo their loves. 
My love shall heal your wounded breast, 
And in yon tall lodge two shall rest." 

— Joaquin Miller. 



MR. BROWN HAS HIS HAIR CUT. 

Middle Pitch, Moderate Bate, Expulsive Force. 

Mr. Brown is one of our most enterprising mer- 
chants; he is voted among his friends as being of a 
very independent disposition — in fact, in some mat- 
ters, this independence of spirit might be said to 
amount to eccentricity. One of his striking peculiari- 
ties used to be that of wearing his hair very long. His 
wife had frequently remonstrated with him on his 
unfashionable appearance, and his daughter had ven- 
tured to inquire two or three times when he was going 



122 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

to visit the barber, while some of his more intimate 
acquaintances had even gone so far as to ask, " Brown, 
why don't you get your hair cut ? " 

He had borne these questions and comments for 
some time in dignified silence, but at last, feeling that 
patience had ceased to be a virtue, and also being 
warned by the singing of the birds and the blossoming 
of the trees and the uncomfortable feeling of his winter 
overcoat that spring was at hand, he determined one 
morning on his way down-town to his place of business 
to drop in and have his hair cut, which he accordingly 
did. After this he repaired to the warehouse, entered 
his private office, and sat down to look over his mail. 
Presently Mr. Thompson, the senior partner, came in 
with a budget of papers. "Ah! good-morning, Mr. 
Brown ; if you are at leisure I would like you to look 
over this invoice of goods. Here are two or three items 
that — " then suddenly glancing up, "why, Mr. Brown, 
you 've been getting your hair cut; really it is a great 
improvement." "Ah! thank you," replied Mr. Brown, 
with a satisfied smile. They proceeded with their busi- 
ness, and in a few minutes the junior partner entered. 
"Here is a letter from Field & Co., inquiring about 
those goods that were ordered last week. Now, don't 
you think there has been — Why, Mr. Brown, you 've 
had your hair cut." "Yes," said Mr. Brown, in a 
rather more dignified tone than that in which he had 
responded to Mr. Thompson; "I have been getting 
my hair cut." 

Presently the head clerk entered the office. "Mr. 
Adams is out in the store and would like to see you a 
few minutes if it is — Oh! why, Mr. Brown, you've 
had your l^air cut! " "Yes," said Mr. Brown, in an 
exceedingly dignified tone, " I have had my hair cut." 



SELECTIONS. 128 

He went out into the store to see Mr. Adams. As he 
passed by the desk he heard, the head bookkeeper whis- 
per to another: "Brown has been to the barber's," 
while an errand boy, who was dangling his legs from 
the top of a high stool, called in a stage whisper to a 
boy several feet away: "Hey, Tommy, look at the 
boss, — he has had his hair cut! " By this time Mr. 
Brown's temper was slightly ruffled. But Mr. Adams 
is one of those genial men who always has a smile on 
his countenance, and he advanced to meet Mr. Brown 
with extended hand. "Good-morning; this is delight- 
ful spring weather, now isn't it? Winter has — Weil, 
I do declare, Brown, you 've had your hair cut!" Mr. 
Brown's reply was short but to the point. "Yes — I — 
have — had — my — hair — cut." Every word was em- 
phatic, and Mr. Adams felt that, although it was 
spring weather outdoors, the inside temperature had 
suddenly fallen below freezing-point. Without further 
preliminaries they proceeded at once to business. Just 
as Mr. Adams was leaving, Mr. Brown's daughter 
entered. She was evidently in a hurry, and told her 
errand without delay. "Ma has just had a telegram 
from Mr. Allen, and he and Mrs. Allen will be out to 
lunch, and ma wants you to come right home and order 
the carriage and go to the depot to — pa ! you 've 
really had your hair cut! I'm so glad," she exclaimed 
delightedly, clasping her hands. 

Mr. Brown waited to hear no more, but pushing his 
hat down as far as possible on his head, he rushed out 
on the street and boarded the first car that came along. 
It was quite a little distance to his home, and by the 
time he reached there his feelings were somewhat 
soothed. He put his latch-key in the door, but before 
he had time to turn it the door was opened from 



124 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

within, and his wife threw her arms about his neck. 
" Oh 1 I am so glad you 've come ; I want you to take 
the carriage and go right down to meet Mr. and Mrs. 
Allen 1 I should be so mortified to have them come 
and not find you there to — Why, my dear, you've 
had your hair cut, haven't you?" she said in her 
sweetest tones. Mr. Brown glared at her so wildly she 
was frightened. "Yes, I've had my hair cutl" he 
growled out, as he rushed through the house and to the 
stable. "Patrick, put the grays to the large carriage 
as soon as possible." " Yis, sor; they'll be ready in 
fifteen minutes," and then as a smile overspread his 
features, he said in his broadest brogue: " Och, sure, 
and ye've been havin' your hair cut." By this time 
Mr. Brown's feelings were too deep for utterance.- A 
hen was standing near looking at him out of one eye in 
a meditative manner ; as a slight relief he gave her a 
kick, which she immediately resented by flying on top 
of a barrel and giving utterance to one loud, prolonged 
cut-de-cut-cut-got-your-hair-cut-t-t-t. 



THE BATTLE. 

Orotund Form, Varied Rate, Expulsive and Explosive Forms. 

Heavy and solemn, 

A cloudy column, 
Through the green plain they marching came, 
Measureless spread, like a table dread, 
For the wild grim dice of the iron game. 
Looks are bent on the shaking ground, 
Hearts beat low with a knelling sound ; 
Swift by the breast that must bear the brunt, 
Gallops the Major along the front, 



SELECTIONS. 125 

"Halt!" 

And fettered they stand at the stark command, 
And the warriors, silent, halt. 

Proud in the blush of morning glowing, 

What on the hilltop shines in flowing ? 

" See you the' foeman's banners waving ? " 

"We see the foeman's banners waving! " 

" God be with your children and wife ! " 

Hark to the music — the drum and fife — 

How they ring through the ranks, which they rouse 

to the strife ! 
Thrilling they sound, with their glorious tone, 
Thrilling they go through the marrow and bone ! 
Brothers, God grant, when this life is o'er, 
In the life to come that we meet once more I 

See the smoke, how the lightning is cleaving 

asunder ! 
Hark! the guns, peal on peal, how they boom in 

their thunder. 
From host to host with kindling sound, 
The shouted signal circles round; 
Freer already, breathes the breath ! 
The war is waging, slaughter raging, 
And heavy through the reeking pall 

The iron death-dice fall ! 
Nearer they close — foes upon foes — 
"Ready! " — from square to square it goes. 

They kneel as one man from flank to flank, 
And the fire comes sharp from the foremost rank. 
Many a soldier to earth is sent, 
Many a gap by ball is rent ; 



126 NORMAL INSTITUTE RE AIDER. 

O'er the corpse before springs the hindmost man, 
That the line may not fail to the fearless van. 
To the right, to the left and around and around, 
Death whirls in its dance on the bloody ground. 
God's sunlight is quenched in the fiery fight, 
Over the hosts falls a brooding night ! 
Brothers, God grant, when this life is o'er, 
In the life to come we may meet once more. 

The dead men are bathed in the weltering blood 
And the living are blent in the slippery flood, 
And the feet, as they reeling and sliding go, 
Stumble still on the corpse that sleeps below. 
" What? Francis! " — " Give Charlotte my last fare- 
well." 
As the dying man murmurs, the thunders swell — 
"I'll give — God! are the guns so near? 
Ho! comrades! — yon volley! — look sharp to the 

rear ! 
I'll give to thy Charlotte thy last farewell ! 
Sleep soft ! where death thickest descendeth in 

rain, 
The friend thou f orsakest thy side may regain 1 ' ' 

Hitherward, thitherward reels the fight ; 
Dark and more darkly day glooms into night. 
Brethren, God grant, when this life is o'er, 
In the life to come that we meet once more ! 
Hark to the hoofs that galloping go ! 

The adjutants flying — 
The horsemen press hard on the panting foe, 

Their thunder booms in dying — 
Victory ! 
Tremor has seized on the dastards all, 

And their leaders fall ! Victory ! 



SELECTIONS. 127 

Closed is the brunt of the glorious fight; 
And the day, like a conqueror, bursts on the night I 
Trumpet and fife swelling choral along, 
The triumph already sweeps marching in song. 
Farewell, fallen brothers; though this life be o'er, 
There's another, in which we shall meet you once 
more 1 

— Translated from Schiller, by Bulwer. 






MORAL DECAY BRINGS NATIONAL RUIN. 

In the history of the past, in the relics and ruins 
around us, there are the solemn monuments of nations 
once great that are now nothing. The land of the 
Pharaohs is in decay; its population is now diminish- 
ing, and the sand of the desert daily silting up the 
temples of her former magnificence; Rome is broken 
into fragments ; Jerusalem's last sob is hushed. 

Spain once had an empire on which the sun never 
set, because the moment he set on her possessions in 
the East, he rose on her possessions in the West. Spain 
lies now, in her hopeless struggle, like the blackened 
hull of a vessel that has been lightning-struck, rolling 
and heaving helplessly as the ocean wills. Genoa, 
Venice, Holland, once had an Eastern traffic. Upon 
them the same law of decay has passed, and the weed 
rots on the side of palaces that are now the abode of 
paupers. 

It may be that such a destiny is in store for our 
country. But one thing is certain : that the decay of 
morals, in all these cases, preceded the decay of institu- 
tions. The inward ruin preceded the political. So long 
as there was inward strength of constitution, so long 
intestine commotions were thrown off easilv to the sur- 



128 NORMAL INSTITUTE HEADER. 

face ; so long as the nation was united in itself, so long 
were the attacks of enemies thrown off like the waves 
from the rock. To borrow a Scripture metaphor, if 
there were heard in the political heavens of a devoted 
nation, or a devoted city, the shrill shriek of the judg- 
ment eagles plunging for their prey, it was not till 
moral corruption had reduced the body of the nation to 
a carcass. Where the body was, the eagles were gathered 
together. 

To avert national decay, then, the moral character 
must be guarded. The mighty heart of the nation 
must be kept sound, so that its pulses, when once 
roused, will, like the ocean in its strength, sweep all 
before it. So long as the moral tone is preserved, the 
sun of our glory will not set; there will come no 
national decay and. death. 

War itself, even, is better than moral decay. But 
upon this point there is much sophistry prevalent; 
therefore it is worth while to see how the matter really 
stands. A truly great man — the American, Channing 
— has said, I remember, somewhere in his works, that 
if armies were dressed in a hangman's or a butcher's 
garb, the false glare of military enthusiasm would be 
destroyed, and war would be seen in its true aspect, as 
butchery. 

It is wonderful how the generous enthusiasm of Dr. 
Channing has led him into such a sophism. Take away 
honor, and imagination, and poetry from war, and it 
becomes carnage. Doubtless. And take away public 
spirit and invisible principles from resistance to a tax, 
and Hampden becomes a noisy demagogue. Take away 
the grandeur of his cause, and Washington is a rebel, 
instead of the purest of patriots. Take away imagina- 
tion from love, and what remains ? Let a people treat 



SELECTIONS. 129 

with scorn the defenders of its liberties, and invest 
them with the symbols of degradation, and it will soon 
have no one to defend it. This is but a truism. 

The truth is, that here, as elsewhere, poetry has 
reached the truth, while science and common -sense 
have missed it. It has distinguished — as, in spite of 
all sophistry, men ever will distinguish — war from 
mere bloodshed. It has discerned the higher feelings 
which lie beneath it3 revolting features. 

Carnage is terrible. The conversion of producers into 
destroyers is a calamity. Death, and insults to women 
worse than death, and human features obliterated be- 
neath the hoof of the war-horse, and reeking hospitals, 
and ruined commerce, and violated homes, and broken 
hearts, — they are all awful. But there is something 
worse than death. Cowardice is worse. And the decay 
of enthusiasm and manliness is worse. And it is worse 
than death — aye, worse than a hundred thousand deaths 
— when a people has gravitated down into the creed 
that the "wealth of nations" consists not in generous 
hearts — "fire in each breast, and freedom on each 
brow" — in national virtues, and primitive simplicity, 
and heroic endurance, and preference of duty to life ; 
not in men, but in silk and cotton, and something that 
they call "capital." 

Peace is blessed — peace arising out of charity. But 
peace springing out of the calculations of selfishness is 
not blessed. If the price to be paid for peace is this, 
that "wealth accumulates, and men decay,"' better far 
that war, with all its attendant evils, should stalk 
abroad through our beloved land. 

— -Fred W. Rohertson. 



130 NORMAL INSTITUTE? HEADER. 



THE STORY OF THE FLAG. 

Moderate Rate, Effusive and Explosive Forms, Middle High Pitch. 

There is a subtle passion within each human heart 
That sets the pulse to throbbing, and makes each fiber 

start ; 
That stirs the soul to frenzy in battle's stern array, 
Or cheers the weary traveler in countries far away ; 
That prompts each human being with heart and voice 

to cry : 
'■All hail thee! glorious banner, mount upward to the 

sky! " 
Wherever fate may find him, whenever he beholds 
His country's banner hoisted, and the breeze caress its 

folds. 

But why the Turkish people, crushed 'neath the Sultan's 

heel , 
Or why the people of the Czar, who to that despot 

kneel, 
Should feel the same emotion as the people of a land 
Whose banner stands for liberty, we do not under- 
stand. 
And yet the Turk will rally 'round the crescent and the 

star, 
The Russian people gather 'ntath the eagles of the 

Czar ; 
And each will fight as bravely, and each as loudly cry: 
"All hail our glorious banner! Mount upward to the 

sky ! ' ' 
As if their waving banners were bulwarks of the free, 
Upheld by Freedom's goddess, that ail the world might 

see. 



SJELECTIOA T S r 181 

If they, with stich devotion, 'round such a flag will 

stand, 
O children of Columbia, who occupy a land 
Where in each freeman's ballot, and in each starry 

fold 
Of that banner floating o'er us, is a story that is told 
To the men of every nation, to the men of every 

clime. 
And is carved in burnished letters on the Pantheon of 

Time, 
Of how our noble sires once in Freedom's holy name, 
Did trample on the despot's rule and rend the tyrant's 

chain ; 

And then to make a banner that would represent their 

deeds, 
That would stand for perfect freedom to all people, and 

all creeds, 
They took their bloody footprints, left on the driven 

snow, 
And made those stripes of red and white that set our 

hearts aglow ; 
Then, reaching upward, took the stars, their freedom to 

imply, 
And placed them on a background with the azure of 

the sky ; — 
Shall we, whose banner represents the brotherhood of 

man, 
Be any less heroic than the tyrant's servile clan, 
Whose highest sense of duty, to country or to flag, 
Is bowing down in rev'rence, and evermore to drag 
The chains of despotism which bind their spirits down. 
To regulate their actions by the tyrant's smile or 

frown ? 



182 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

No! Hoist that flag forever o'er the rampart of your 

hearts ; 
Humanity will "bless it for the lesson it imparts. 
It makes the despot tremble as it flutters in the gale ; 
He fears that gentle flutter far above his people's wail. 
And as the weary sailor, while many leagues from 

shore, 
Is cheered by fragrant breezes that have gently wafted 

o'er 
Some far-off fertile island, with its groves of spice and 

palm. 
And in passing thus were laden with the perfume of its 

balm, — 
So the down-trodden people, of every land and clime, 
With gladdened hearts are turning to this flag of source 

divine. 
They breathe in every zephyr that has kissed its starry 

"fold 
The spirit of our sires who that banner did uphold. 

children of Columbia! each acting well his part, 

Will wear that banner graven on the tablet of his 
heart ; 

Will speed the message onward, o'er all the land and 
sea, 

"The stars and stripes are waving for all humanity;" 

Will shout, " Wave on, Old Glory! Thy stars and stripes 
shall float 

O'er peaceful school -bell music, or warlike bugle's 
note;" 

Will feel his pulses throbbing to the music of the 
drum 

No more than when, in times of peace, his duty whis- 
pers, "Come!" —Edward T. Barber. 



SELECTIONS, 183 

NATIONS AND HUMANITY. 

Middle Pitch, Pure Tone, Moderate Pate. 

It was not his olive valleys and orange groves which 
made the Greece of the Greek, it was not for his apple- 
orchards or potato-fields that the farmer of New Eng- 
land and New York left his plow in the furrow and 
marched to Bunker Hill, to Bennington, to Saratoga. 
A man's country is not a certain area of land, hut it is 
a principle ; and patriotism is loyally io that principle. 
The secret sanctification of the soil and symbol of a 
country is the idea which they represent ; and this idea 
the patriot worships through the name and the symbol, 

So, with passionate heroism, of which tradition is 
never weary of tenderly telling, Arnold von Winkelried 
gathers into his bosom the sheaf of foreign spears. So, 
Nathan Hale, disdaining no service that duty demands, 
perishes untimely with no other friend than God and 
the satisfied sense of duty. So, through all history 
from the beginning, a. noble army of martyrs has fought, 
fiercely, and fallen bravely, for that unseen mistress, 
their country. So, through all history to the end, that 
army must still march, and fight, and fall. 

But countries and families are but nurseries and in- 
fluences. A man is a father, a brother, a German, a 
Roman, an American: but beneath all these relations ^ 
he is a man. The end of his human destiny is not to 
fee the best German, or the best Roman, or the best 
father, but the best man he can be. 

History shows us that the association of men in vari- 
ous nations is made subservient to the gradual advance 
of the whole human race; and that all nations work 
together toward one grand result. So, to the philo- 
sophic eye, the race is but a vast caravan forever mov- 



184 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

ing, but seeming often to encamp for centuries at some 
green oasis of ease, where luxury lures away heroism, as 
soft Capua enervated the hosts of Hannibal. 

But still the march proceeds — slowly, slowly over 
mountains, through valleys, along plains, marking its 
course with monumental splendors, with wars, plagues, 
crimes, advancing still, decorated with all the pomp of 
nature, lit by the constellations, cheered by the future, 
warned by the past. In that vast march, the van for- 
gets the rear; the individual is lost: and yet the mul- 
titude is but many individuals. The man faints, and 
falls, and dies, and is forgotten; but still mankind 
moves on, still worlds revolve, and the will of God is 
done in earth and heaven. 

We of America, with our soil sanctified and our sym- 
bol glorified by the great ideas of liberty and religion — 
love of freedom and love of God — are in the foremost 
vanguard of this great caravan of humanity. To us 
rulers look, and learn justice, while they tremble; to 
us the nations look, and learn to hope, while they re- 
joice. Our heritage is ail the love and heroism of lib- 
erty in the past ; and all the great of the Old World 
are our teachers. 

Our faith is in God. and the Right ; and God himself 
is, we believe, our Guide and Leader. Though darkness 
sometimes shadows our national sky, though confusion 
comes from error, and success breeds corruption, yet 
will the storm pass in God's good time, and in clearer 
sky and purer atmosphere our national life grow 
stronger and nobler, sanctified more and more, conse- 
crated to God and liberty by the martyrs who fall in 
the strife for the just and the true. 

And so, with our individual hearts strong in love for 
our principles, strong in faith in our God, shall the 



SELECTIONS. 185 

nation leave to coming generations a heritage of free- 
dom, and law, and religion, and truth, more glorious 
than the world has known before; and our American 
banner be planted first and highest on heights as yet 
unattained hi the great march of humanity. 

— Georqe William Curtis. 



CREEDS OF THE BELLS. 

Varied Pitch, Moderate Rale, Effusive Form. 

How sweet the chime of Sabbath bells ! 
Each one its creed in music tells, 
In tones that float upon the air, 
As soft as song, and pure ae prayer; 
And I will put in simple rhyme 
The language of the golden chime. 
My happy heart with rapture swells 
Responsive to the bells — sweet bells. 

"Ye purifying waters swell S " 
In mellow tones rang out a bell ; 
"Though faith alone in Christ can save, 
Man must be plunged beneath the wave. 
To show the world unfaltering faith 
In what the Sacred Scriptures saith: 
Oh, swell 1 ye rising waters, swell! ** 
Pealed out the clear-toned Baptist bell. 

"Oh., heed the ancient landmarks well! ' 
In solemn tones exclaimed a bell ; 
"No progress made by mortal man 
Can change the just eternal plan : 



186 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

With God there can be nothing new ; 
Ignore the false, embrace the true, 
While all is well! is well! is well ! " 
Peaied out the good old Dutch Church bell. 

"In deeds of love excel! excel! " 
Chimed out from ivied towers, a bell; 
" This is the church not built on sands, 
Emblem of one not built with hands; 
Its forms and sacred rites revere t 
Come worship here ! come worship here 1 
In rituals and faith excel! " 
Chimed out the Episcopalian bell. 

" Not faith alone, but works as well, 
Must test the soul ! ' ; said a soft bell ; 
" Come here and cast aside your load, 
And work your way along the road. 
With faith in God and faith in man, 
And hope in Christ, where hope began. 
Do well ! do w r ell ! do well ! do well ! " 
Bang out the Unitarian bell. 

" In after-life there is no hell ! " 
In raptures rang a cheerful bell ; 
" Look up to heaven this holy day, 
Where angels wait to lead the way; 
There are no fires, no fiends to blight 
The future life ; be just and right. 
No hell I no hell ! no hell ! no hell ! " 
Rang out the Universalist bell. 

"The Pilgrim Fathers heeded well 
My cheerful voice," pealed forth a bell; 
"No fetters here to clog the soul ; 
No arbitrary creeds control 



SELECTIONS. 137 

The free heart and progressive mind, 

That, leave the dusty past behind. 

Speed well ! speed well 1 speed well ! speed well I " 

Pealed put the Independent bell. 

" Farewell 1 farewell ! base world, farewell ! " 
In touching tones exclaimed a bell ; 
" Life is a boon to mortals given, 
To fit the soul for bliss in heaven. 
Do not invoke the avenging rod ; 
Come here, and learn the way to God. 
Say to the world farewell ! farewell ! " 
Pealed out the Presbyterian bell. 

"To all the truth we tell — we tell," 
Shouted in ecstasies a bell ; 
" Come, all ye weary wanderers, see ! 
Our Lord has made salvation free. 
Repent 1 believe; have faith ! and then 
Be saved, and praise the Lord. Amen. 
Salvation's free, we tell — we tell," 
Shouted the Methodistic bell. 

Neatly attired, in manner plain, 
Behold a pilgrim — no spot, no stain — 
Slowly, with soft and measured tread, 
In Quaker garb — no white — no red. 
To passing friend I hear him say: 
''Here worship thou — this is the way — 
No churchly form — it is not well ; 
No bell, no bell, no bell, no bell," 

— George W. Bungay. 



138 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Slow Rate, Middle and High Pitch, Sustained Force. 

The eulogium pronounced on the character of the 
State of South Carolina, by the honorable gentleman, 
for her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my 
hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the 
honorable member goes before me in regard for* what- 
ever of distinguished talent or distinguished character 
South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the 
honor; I partake in the pride of her great names. I 
claim them for countrymen, one and all — 'the Lau- 
renses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the 
Marions — Americans all, whose fame is no more to be 
hemmed in by State lines than their talents and patri- 
otism were capable of being circumscribed within the 
same narrow limits. 

In their day and generation they served and honored 
the country, and the whole country, and their renown 
is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose 
honored name the gentleman himself bears — does he 
suppose me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, 
or sympathy for his Buffering, than if his eyes had first 
opened upon the light in Massachusetts, instead of in 
South Carolina ? Sir, does he suppose it in his power 
to exhibit in Carolina a name so bright as to produce 
envy in my bosom? No, sir- — increased gratification 
and delight rather. Sir, I thank God that, if I am 
gifted with little of the spirit which is said to be able 
to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, 
of that other spirit which would drag angels down. 

When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the 
Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit because 



SELECTIONS. 139 

it happened to spring up beyond the little limits of my 
own State or neighborhood ; when I refuse for any such 
cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American 
talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to 
liberty and the country; or if I see an uncommon en- 
dowment of Heaven ; if I see extraordinary capacity or 
virtue in any son of the South ; and if, moved by local 
prejudice, or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up 
here to abate a tithe of a hair from his just character 
and just fame, — may my tongue cleave to the roof of 
my mouth. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon 
Massachusetts. She needs none. There she is ; behold 
her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; 
the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is 
eecure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, 
and Bunker Hill ; and there they will remain forever. 
And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, 
and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there 
it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full 
of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall 
wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall 
hawk at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasi- 
ness under salutary restraint shall succeed to separate 
it from that Union, by which alone its existence is 
made sure, — it will stand, in the end, by the side of 
that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will 
stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may 
still retain, over the friends who gathered around it; 
and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the 
proudest monuments of its glory and on the very spot 

of its ori S iil ' -Daniel Webster. 



140 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

THERE ARE NO DEAD. 

Slow Rale, Effusive Form, Low Piicli. 

There is no death ! The stars go down 
To rise upon some fairer shore ; 

And bright in Heaven's jeweled crown, 
They shine for evermore. 

There is no death ! The dust we tread 

Shall change beneath the summer showers 

To golden grain or mellow fruit, 
Or rainbow-tinted flowers. 

There is no death ! An angel form 
Walks o'er the earth with silent tread; 

He bears our best-loved things away ; 
And then we call them- — " dead." 

Born into that undying life, 

They leave us but to come again ; 

With joy we welcome them — the same, 
Except in sin and pain. 

And ever near us, though unseen, 

The dear immortal spirits tread ; 
For all the boundless universe 

Is life: THERE ARE NO DEAD. 

— J. S. McCrecry, 



SELECTIONS. 141 

THE BLACK HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 

Varied Bate, Energetic Bate, Explosive Form. 

It was the 7th of October, 1777. Horatio Gates stood 
before his tent, gazing steadfastly upon the two armies, 
now arrayed in order of battle. It was a clear, bracing 
day, mellow with the richness of autumn. The sky 
was cloudless; the foliage of the woods scarce tinged 
with purple and gold ; the buckwheat in yonder fields 
frostened in a snowy ripeness. But the tread of legions 
shook the ground; from every bash shot the glimmer 
of the rifle-barrel; on every hillside blazed the sharp- 
ened bayonet. Gates was sad and thoughtful, as he 
watched the evolutions of the two armies. But all at 
once a smoke arose, a thunder shook the ground, and a 
chorus of shouts and groans yelled along the darkened 
air. The play of death had begun. The two flags — 
this of the stars, that of the red cross — tossed amid 
the smoke of battle, while the sky was clouded with 
leaden folds, and the earth throbbed with the pulsa- 
tions of a mighty heart. 

Suddenly, Gates and his officers were startled. Along 
the height on which they stood came a rider on a black 
horse, rushing toward the distant battle. There was 
something in the appearance of this horse and his rider 
that struck thern with surprise. Look! — he draws his 
sword, the sharp blade quivers through the air — he 
points to the distant battle, and lo! he is gone; gone 
through those clouds, while his shout echoes over the 
plains. Wherever the fight is thickest, there, through 
intervals of cannon-smoke, you may see riding madly 
forward that strange soldier, mounted on his steed black 
as death. Look at him, as red with British blood he 
waves his sword and shouts to his legions. Now you 



142 tfOUMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

may see him fighting in that cannon's glare, and the 
next moment he is away off yonder, leading the forlorn 
hope up that steep cliff. Is it not a magnificent sight- 
to see that strange soldier and that noble black horse 
dashing like a meteor down the long columns of battle? 

Let us look for a moment into those clouds of bat- 
tle. Over this thick hedge bursts a band of Ameri- 
can militia-men 5 their rude farmer coats stained with 
blood, while scattering their arms by the way, they flee 
before that company of red-coat hirelings, who come 
rushing forward, their solid front of bayonets gleaming 
in the battle-light. In this moment of their flight, a 
horse comes crashing over the plains. The unknown 
rider reins his steed back on his haunches, right in the 
path of these broad-shouldered militia-men. 

" Now, cowards ! advance another step and I'll strike 
you to the heart! " shouts the unknown, extending a 
pistol in either hand. "What! are you Americans, 
men, and fly before British soldiers ? Back again and 
face them once more, or I will myself ride you down." 

This appeal was not without its effect. Their leader 
turns; his comrades, as if by impulse, follow his ex- 
ample. In one line, but thirty men in all, they con- 
front thirty sharp bayonets. The British advance. 

"Now upon the rebels — charge!" shouts the red- 
coat officer. They spring forward at the same bound. 
Look ! their bayonets almost touch the muzzles of the 
rifles. At this moment the voice of the unknown rider 
was heard : 

' : Now let them have it ! Fire ! " 

A sound is heard, a smoke is seen, twenty Britons 
are down, some writhing in death, some crawling along 
the soil, and some speechless as stone. The remaining 
ten start back. 



SELECTIONS. 143 

"Club your rifles and charge them home! " shouts 
the unknown. That black horse springs forward, fol- 
lowed by the militia-men. Then a confused conflict — a 
cry for quarter, and a vision of twenty farmers grouped 
around the rider of the black horse, greeting him with 
cheers. 

Thus it was, all da} 7- long. Wherever that black 
horse and his rider went, there followed victory. At 
last, toward the setting of the sun, the crisis of the 
conflict came. That fortress yonder on Bemis Heights, 
must be won, or the American cause is lost ! That cliff 
is too steep, that death is too certain. The officers 
cannot persuade the men to advance. The Americans 
have lost the field. Even Morgan, that iron man 
among iron men, leans on his rifle and despairs of the 
field. But look yonder I In this moment, when all is 
dismay and horror, here crashing on comes the black 
horse and "his rider. That rider bends upon his steed, 
his frenzied face covered with sweat, and dust, and 
blood; he lays his hand upon that bold rifleman's 
shoulder, and as though living fire had been poured 
into his vein3, he seizes his rifle and starts toward the 
rock. And now look! now hold your breath, as that 
black steed crashes up that steep cliff. The steed 
quivers! he totters ! he fails ! No! no I Still on, still 
up the cliff, still on toward the fortress. The rider 
turns his face and shouts, "Come on, men of Quebec! 
come on ! " 

That call is needless. Already the bold riflemen are 
on the rock. Now, British cannon, pour your fires and 
lay your dead in tens and twenties on the rock. Xow, 
red-coat hirelings, shout your battle-cry if you can ! 
For look! there in the gate of the fortress, as the 
smoke clears away, stands the black horse and his 



144 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

rider. That steed falls dead, pierced by an hundred 
balls; but his rider, as the British cry for quarter, lifts 
up his voice and shouts afar to Horatio Gates waiting 
yonder in his tent, " Saratoga is won! " 

As that cry goes up to heaven, he falls with his leg 
shattered by a cannon-ball. 

Who was the rider of the black horse ? Do you not 

guess his name ? Then bend down and gaze on that 

shattered limb, and you will see that it bears the mark 

of a former wound. That wound was received in the 

storming of Quebec. That rider of the black horse was- — 

Benedict Arnold 1 ~, , aT , 

— Charles onepparcL 



THE BLACKSMITH'S STORY. 

Pathetic, Effusive Form, Moderate. Rate. 

Well, no! My wife ain't dead, sir, but I've lost her all 

the same; 
She left me voluntarily, and neither was to blame. 
It's rather a queer story, and I think you will agree — 
When you hear the circumstances — 'twas rather rough 

on me. 

She was a soldier's widow. He was killed at Malvern 

Hill; 
And when I married her she seemed to sorrow for him 

still ; 
But I brought her here to Kansas, and I never want to 

see 
A better wife than Mary was for five bright years to 

me. 






SELECTIONS. 145 

The change of scene brought cheerfulness, and soon a 

rosy glow 
Of happiness warmed Mary's cheeks and melted all 

their snow. 
I think she loved me some, — I'm bound to think that 

of her, sir, 
And as for me, — I can't begin to tell how I loved her I 

Three years ago the baby came our humble home to 
bless ; 

And then I reckon I was nigh to perfect happiness ; 

'Twas hers — 'twas mine; but I've no language to ex- 
plain to you 

How that little girl's weak fingers our hearts together 
drew ! 

Once we watched it through a fever, and with each 

gasping breath, 
Dumb, with an awful, wordless woe, we waited for its 

death ; 
And, though I'm not a pious man, our souls together 

there, 
For Heaven to spare our darling, went up in voiceless 

prayer. 

And when the doctor said 't would live, our joy what 
words could tell ? 

Clasped in each other's arms, our grateful tears to- 
gether fell. 

Sometimes, you see, the shadow fell across our little 
nest, 

But it only made the sunshine seem a doubly welcome 
guest. 
—10 



146 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

Work came to me a plenty, and I kept the anvil ring- 
ing,— 

Early and late you'd find me there a-hammering and 
singing ; 

Xiove nerved my arm to labor, and moved my tongue 
to song, 

And though my singing wasn't sweet, it was tremen- 
dous strong ! 

•'One day a one-armed stranger stopped to have me nail 

a shoe, 
And while I was at work we passed a compliment or 

two; 
I asked him how he lost his arm. He said 'twas shot 

away 
At Malvern Hill. "Malvern Hill! — Did you know 

Eobert May?" 

*' That 's me," said he. "You, you! " I gasped, chok- 
ing with horrid doubt ; 

"If you're the man, just follow me; we'll try this 
mystery out ! ' ' 

With dizzy steps I led him in to Mary. God ! 'T was 
true ! 

Then the bitterest pangs of misery, unspeakable, I 
knew. 

Frozen with deadly horror, she stared with eyes of 
stone, 

And from her quivering lips there broke one wild, de- 
spairing moan. 

'T was he ! the husband of her youth, now risen from 
the dead, — 

But all too late ; and, with bitter cry, her senses fled. 



SELECTIONS. 147 

What could be done ? He was reported dead. On his 

return 
He strove in vain some tidings of his absent wife to 

learn. 
'T was well that he was innocent ! Else I 'd have killed 

him, too, 
So dead he never would have riz till Gabriel's trumpet 

blew ! 

It was agreed that Mary then between us should decide, 
And each by her decision would sacredly abide. 
No sinner at the judgment-seat, 'waiting eternal doom, 
Could suffer what I did while waiting sentence in that 
room. 

Rigid and breathless, there we stood, with nerves as 

tense as steel, 
While Mary's eyes sought each white face in piteous 

appeal . 
God ! could not woman's duty be less hardly reconciled 
Between her lawful husband and the father of her child? 

Ah, how my heart was chilled to ice when she knelt 

down and said : 
" Forgive me, John ! He is my husband ! Here ! Alive ! 

not dead! " 
I raised her tenderly, and tried to tell her she was 

right,— 
But somehow, in my aching breast, the prisoned words 

stuck tight ! 

4 'But, John, I can't leave baby." — "What! wife and 

child ! ' ' cried I ; 

"Must I yield all! Ah, cruel fate! Better that I 

should die. 



148 NORMAL INSTITUTE HEADER. 

Think of the long, sad, lonely hours, waiting in gloom 

for me, — 
No wife to cheer me with her love, — no babe to climb 

my knee ! 

"And yet — you are her mother, and the sacred mother- 
love 

Is still the purest, tenderest tie that Heaven ever wove. 

Take her; but promise, Mary, — for that will bring no 
shame, — 

My little girl shall bear and learn to lisp her father's 
name ! " 

It may be, in the life to come, I'll meet my child and 

wife; 
But yonder, by my cottage gate, we parted for this life ; 
One long hand-clasp from Mary, and my dream of love 

was done ! 
One long embrace from baby, and my happiness was 

— Frank Olive. 



TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. 

Moderate Rate, Expulsive Form, Middle Pitch. 

If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should 
take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no lan- 
guage rich enough to paint the great captain of the 
nineteenth century. Were I to tell you the story of 
Washington, I should take it from your hearts — you 
who think no marble white enough on which to carve 
the name of the father of his country. But I am to 
tell you the story of a negro, Toussaint L'Ouverture, 
who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it 



SELECTIONS. 149 

from the reluctant testimony of his enemies, men who 
despised him because he was a negro and a slave, hated 
him because he had beaten them in battle. 

Cromwell manufactured his own army. Napoleon, 
at the age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of 
the best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw 
an army till he was forty ; this man never saw a soldier 
till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his own 
army — out of what ? Englishmen — the best blood in 
Europe. Out of the middle class of Englishmen — the 
best blood of the island. And with it he conquered 
what? Englishmen — their equals. This man manu- 
factured his army out of what ? Out of what you call 
the despicable race of negroes, — debased, demoralized 
by two hundred years of slavery, one hundred thousand 
of them imported into the island within four years, un- 
able to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other. 
Yet out of this mixed, and as you say, despicable mass, 
he forged a thunderbolt, — and hurled it at what ? At 
the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent 
him home conquered ; at the most warlike blood in 
Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at 
the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they 
skulked home- to Jamaica. Now if Cromwell was a 
general, at least this man was a soldier. 

Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back 
with me to the commencement of the century, and 
select what statesman you please. Let him be either 
American or European ; let him have a brain the result 
of six generations of culture ; let him have the ripest 
training of university routine; let him add to it the 
better education of practical life ; crown his temple 
with the silver locks of seventy years, and show me the 
man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine ad- 



150 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

mirer will wreathe a laurel rich as embittered foes 
have placed on the brow of this negro,— rare military 
skill, profound knowledge of human nature, content to 
blot out all party distinctions, and trust a State to the 
blood of its sons, — anticipating Sir Robert Peel fifty 
years, and takiDg his station by the side of Roger Will- 
iams before any Englishman or American had won the 
right : and yet this is the record which the history of 
rival States makes up for this inspired black of San 
Domingo. 

Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to Hayti, 
and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best 
soldiers France ever had, and ask them what they 
think of the negro's sword. 

I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his 
way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of 
blood. This man never broke his word. I would call 
him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and 
the State he founded went down with him into his 
grave. I would call him Washington, but the great 
Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire 
rather than permit the slave - trade in the humblest 
village of his dominions. 

You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not 
with your eyes but with your prejudices. But fifty 
years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of 
history will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the 
Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, 
choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of 
our earlier civilization; then, dipiDing her pen in the 
sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, 
the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, — 
Toussaint L'Ouverture. -Weudell Phillips. 



SELECTIONS. 151 



HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET. 

'T was on the famous trotting-ground ; 

The betting men were gathered round 

From far and near : the ' ' cracks ' ' were there r 

Whose deeds the sporting prints declare ; 

The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag; 

The fleet s. h., Don PfeirTer's brag; 

With these a third, — and who is he 

That stands beside his fast b. g.? 

Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name 

So fills the nasal trump of fame. 

Green horses also, not a few, — 

Unknown as yet what they could do ; 

And all the hacks that know so well 

The scourging of the Sunday swell. 

Blue are the skies of opening day; 
The bordering turf is green with May ; 
The sunshine's golden gleam is thrown 
On sorrel, chestnut, bay, and roan; 
The horses paw and prance and neigh ; 
Fillies and colts like kittens play, 
And dance, and toss their rippled manes- 
Shining and soft as silken skeins ; 
Wagons and gigs are ranged about, 
And Fashion flaunts her gay turnout : 
Here stands — each youthful Jehu's dream — 
The jointed tandem, ticklish team ! 
And there in ampler breadth expand 
The splendors of the four-in-hand ; 
On faultless ties and glossy tiles 
The lovely bonnets beam their smiles ; 



152 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

( The style 's the man, so books avow; 
The style 's the woman, anyhow;) 
From flounces frothed with creamy lace 
Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, 
Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, 
Or stares the wiry pet of Skye, — 

woman, in your hours of ease 
So shy with us, so free with these ! 

" Come on ! I '11 bet you two to one 

1 '11 make him do it ! "—"Will you ? Done ! : 
What was it who was bound to do ? 

I did not hear, and can't tell you : 
Pray listen till my story 's through. 

Scarce noticed, back behind the rest, 

By cart and wagon rudely prest, 

The parson's lean and bony bay, 

Stood harnessed in his one-horse shay, — 

Lent to his sexton for the day. 

( A funeral — so the sexton said : 

His mother's uncle's wife was dead.) 

Like Lazarus bid to Dives' feast, 

So looked the poor forlorn old beast ; 

His coat was rough, his tail was bare, 

The gray was sprinkled in his hair : 

Sportsmen and jockeys knew him not, 

And yet they say he once could trot 

Among the fleetest of the town, 

Till something cracked and broke him down,— 

The steed's the statesman's common lot! 

"And are we then so soon forgot ? " 

Ah me ! I doubt if one of you 

Has ever heard the name " Old Blue," 



SELECTIONS. 153 

Whose fame through all this region rung 
In those old days when I was young ! 

" Bring forth the horse ! " Alas ! he showed 
Not like the one Mazeppa rode : 
Scant-maned, sharp-backed and shaky-kneed, 
The wreck of what was once a steed, — 
Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; 
Yet not without his knowing points. 
The sexton laughing in his sleeve, 
As if 'twere all a make-believe, 
Led forth the horse, and as he laughed 
Unhitched the breeching from a shaft, 
Unclasped the rusty belt beneath, 
Drew forth the snaffle from his teeth, 
Slipped off his head-stall, set him free 
From strap and rein — a sight to see ! 

',' So worn, so lean in every limb, 
It can't be they are saddling him ! 
It is! His back the pig-skin strides, 
And flaps his lank, rheumatic sides ; 
With look of mingled scorn and mirth 
They buckle round the saddle-girth ; 
With horsey wink and saucy toss 
A youngster throws his leg across. 
And so, his rider on his back, 
They lead him, limping, to the track, 
Far up behind the starting-point, 
To limber out each stiffened joint. 

As through the jeering crowd he passed, 
One pitying look old Hiram cast ; 



154 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

" Go it, ye cripple, while ye can 1 " 
Cried out unsentimental Dan ; 
"A fast-day dinner for the crows 1 " 
Btidd Doble's scoffing shout arose. 

Slowly, as when the walking-beam 

First feels the gathering head of steam, 

With warning cough and threatening wheeze. 

The stiff old charger crooks his knees ; 

At first with cautious step sedate, 

As if he dragged a coach of state : 

He 's not a colt; he knows full well 

That time is weight and sure to tell ; 

No horse so sturdy but what he fears 

The handicap of twenty years. 

As through the throng on either hand 
The old horse nears the judges' stand, 
Beneath his jockey's feather-weight 
He warms a little to his gait, 
And now and then a step is tried 
That hints at something like a stride, 

" Go ! " Through his ear the summons stung 

As if a battle-trump had rung ; 

The slumbering instincts long unstirred 

Start at the old familiar word ; 

It thrills like flame through every limb — 

What mean his twenty years to him ? 

The savage blow his rider dealt 

Fell on his hollow flanks unfelt ; 

The spur that pricked his staring hide 

Unheeded tore his bleeding side ; 

Alike to him are spur and rein — 

He steps a five-year-old again ! 



SELECTIONS. 155 

Before a quarter-pole was passed, 

Old Hiram said, " He 's going fast." 

Long ere the quarter was a half, 

The chuckling crowd had ceased to laugh ; 

Tighter his frightened jockey clung 

As in a mighty stride he swung, 

The gravel flying in his track, 

His neck stretched out, his ears laid back, 

His tail extended all the while 

Behind him like a rat-tail file ! 

Off went a shoe — away it spun, 

Shot like a bullet from a gun ; 

The quaking jockey shapes a prayer 

From scraps of oaths he used to swear ; 

He drops his whip, he drops his rein, 

He clutches fiercely for a mane ; 

He '11 lose his hold — he sways and reels — 

He '11 slide beneath those trampling heels ! 

The knees of many a horseman quake, 

The flowers on many a bonnet shake, 

And shouts arise from left and right, 

"Stick on! stick on!" " Hould tight! hould 

tight!" 
" Cling 'round his neck; and don't let go — 
That pace can't hold — there! steady! whoa! " 
But, like the sable steed that bore 
The spectral lover of Lenore, 
His nostrils snorting foam and fire, 
No stretch his bony limbs can tire ; 
And now the stand he rushes by, 
And " Stop him ! stop him ! " is the cry. 

lk Stand back ! he 's only just begun — 
He 's having out three heats in one ! " 



156 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

"Don't rush in front! he'll smash your 

brains ; 
But follow up and grab the reins ! " 
Old Hiram spoke. Dan Pfeiffer heard, 
And sprung, impatient, at the word ; 
Bubb Doble started on his bay, 
Old Hiram followed on his gray, 
And off they spring, and round they go, 
The fast ones doing "all they know." 
Look ! twice they follow at his heels, 
As round the circling course he wheels, 
And whirls with him that clinging boy 
Like Hector 'round the walls of Troy. 
Still on, and on, the third time 'round! 
They're tailing off! they're losing ground! 
Bubb Doble 's nag begins to fail ! 
Dan Pfeiffer's sorrel whisks his tail ! 
And see ! in spite of whip and shout, 
Old Hiram's mare is giving out! 

Now for the finish ! At the turn, 

The old horse — all the rest astern — 

Comes swinging in, with easy trot; 

By Jove ! he's distanced all the lot ! 

That trot no mortal could explain ; 

Some said, "Old Dutchman come again I " 

Some took his time — at least, they tried, 

But what it was could none decide ; 

One said he couldn't understand 

What happened to his second-hand ; 

One said 2:10; that couldn't be — 

More like two twenty-two or three ; 

Old Hiram settled it at last : 

' ' The time was two — too mighty fast ! ' ' 



SELECTIONS. 15? 

The parson's horse had won the bet; 
It cost him something of a sweat ; 
Back in the one-horse shay he went. 
The parson wondered what it meant, 
And murmured, with a mild surprise 
And pleasant twinkle of the eyes, 
" That funeral must have been a trick,. 
Or corpses drive at double quick ; 
I shouldn't wonder, I declare, 
If Brother Murray made the prayer 1 ' ' 

And this is all I have to say 

About the parson's poor old bay, 

The same that drew the one-horse shay. 

Moral for which this tale is told : 

A horse can trot, for all he's old. 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes-. 



SAM'S LETTER. 
Fast Rate, Middle Pitch, Falsetto Voice. 

I wonder who w-wote me thith letter ? I thuppbthe 
the b-best way to f-rind out ith to open it and thee. 
( Opens letter.) Thome lun-lunatic hath witten me thith 
letter. He hath w-witten it upthide down. I wonder if 
he th-thought I wath going to w-wead it thanding on my 
head. Oh, yeth, I thee; I had it t-t-turned upthide 
down. '^^Lewiea/' Who do I know in Amewica ? I 
am glad he hath g-given me hith addwess anyhow. Oh > 
yeth, I thee, it ith from Tham. I always know Tham's 
handwiting when I thee hith name at the b-b-bottom 
of it, 

"My dear bwother — " Tham alwaths called me 
bwother. I-I thuppose iths because hith m-mother 



158 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

and my mother wath the thame woman and we never 
had any thisters. When we were boyth we were ladths 
together. They used to g-get off a pwoverb when they 
thaw uth corn-coming down the stweet. It ith very 
good, if I could only think of it. I never can weccol- 
lect anything that I can't we-wemember. Ith — it ith 
the early bir-bird — ith the early bir-bird that knowths 
iths own father. What non-nonsense that iths ! How 
c-could a bir-bird know its own father ? Iths a withe 
— iths a withe child — its a withe child that geths the 
worn. 

T-that 's not wite. What non-non-nonthense that 
iths ! No pawent would allow hiths child to ga-gather 
woms. Iths a wyme. Iths a fish of -of a feather. 
Fish of a fea — what non-nonthense ! for fish don't 
have feathers. Iths a bir-bird — iths b-birds of a 
feather— b-bircls of a feather flock together. B-birds 
of a feather! Just as if a who-who-whole flock of 
b-birds had only one f-feather. They 'd all catch cold, 
and only one b-bird c-could have that feather, and he 'd 
fly sidewithse. What con-confounded nonthense that 
iths ! Flock together ! Of courthse th-they 'd flock 
together. Who ever her-heard of a bird being such a 
f -f ool as to go into a corner and flo-flock by himself ? 
" I wo-wote you a letter thome time ago — " Thath 's a 
lie ; he d-did n't wi-wite me a letter. If he had witten 
me a letter he would have posted it, and I would have 
g-got it; so, of courthse, he didn't post it, and then he 
did n't wite it. Thath 's easy. Oh, yeths, I thee : "but 
I dwopped it into the potht-potht-ofrlce forgetting to 
diwect it." I wonder who the d-dic-dickens got that 
letter. I wonder if the poth-pothman iths gwoin' 
awound inquiring for a f -fellow without a name. I 
wonder if there iths any fel-fellow without any name. 



SELECTIONS. 159 

If there is any fellow without a name, how doeths he 
know who he iths himself ? I-I wonder if thuch a 
fellow could get mawaid. How could he ask hiths 
wife to take hiths name if he h-had no name ? That's 
one of thoths things no fellow can f-find out. " I have 
just made a startling discovery." Tham 's alwaths 
d-doing thomthing. "I have dithcovered that my 
mother iths — that my mother iths not my mother; 
that a — the old nurse iths my m-mother, and that you 
are not my b-bwother, and a — tha-that I was changed 
at my birth." 

How c-can a fellow be changed at b-birth ? If he 
iths not himself, who iths he ? If Tham's m-mother 
iths not hith m-mother, and the nurthse iths hith 
m-mother, and Tham ith n't my bwother, who am I? 
That 's one of thothse things that no f el-fellow can 
find out. 

' ' I have purchased an ethstate som-somewhere — ' ' 
Doth n't the id-idiot know wh-where h-he hath bought 
it? Oh, yeths: "on the bankths of the M-M-Mith- 
ithippi." Wh-who iths M-Mithithippi ? I g-gueth 
ith 's Tham's m-mother-in-1-law. Tham 's got mawaid. 
He th-thayths he felt v-vewy ner-nervous. He alwath 
waths a lucky fellow getting things he did n't want and 
had n't any use for. Thpeaking of mother-in-lawths, I 
had a fwiend who had a mother-in-law, and he did n't 
like her pwetty well ; and she f-felt the thame way 
towardth him ; and they went away on a steamer 
acwoths the ocean, and they got wecked, catht away on 
a waft, and they floated awound with their feet in the 
water and other amuthements, living on thuch things 
ath they could pick up — thardinths, ithcweam, owanges, 
and other c-canned gooths that were floating awound. 
When that waths all gone, everybody ate everybody 



160 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

else. F-finally only himthelf and hiths m-mother- 
in-law waths left, and they p-played a game of c-cards 
to thee who would be eathen up — himthelf or hiths 
mother-in-law. A-and — the mother-in-law losth. H-he 
treated her handthomely, only he strapped h-her flat 
on her back, and carved her gently. H-h-he thays 
that waths the f -first time that he ever weally enjoyed 
m-mother-in-law. _ Urd Dund reary, 



THE ENGINEER'S STORY. 

Rapid Rate, Middle Pitch, Expulsive Form. 

No, children, my trips are over, 

The engineer needs rest ; 
My hand is shaky ; I'm feeling 

A tugging pain i' my breast ; 
But here, as the twilight gathers, 

I'll tell you a tale of the road, 
That '11 ring in my head forever, 

Till it rests beneath the sod. 

We were lumbering along in the twilight, 

The night was dropping her shade, 
And the "Gladiator" labored — 

Climbing the top of the grade ; 
The train was heavily laden, 

So I let my engine rest, 
Climbing the grading slowly, 

Till we reached the upland's crest. 

I held my watch to the lamplight — 
Ten minutes behind the time ! 

Lost in the slackened motion 
Of the up-grade's heavy climb; 



SELECTIONS. 161 

But I knew the miles of the prairie 

That stretched a level track, 
So I touched the guage of the boiler 

And pulled the lever back. 

Over the rails a-gleaming, 

Thirty an hour, or so, 
The engine leaped like a demon, 

Breathing a fiery glow ; 
But to me — a-hold of the lever — 

It seemed a child alway, 
Trustful and always ready 

My lightest touch to obey. 

I was proud, you know, of my engine, 

Holding it steady that night, 
And my eye on the track before us, 

Ablaze with the Drummond light. 
We neared a well-known cabin, 

Where a child of three or four, 
As the up train passed, oft called me, 

A-playing around the door. 

My hand was firm on the throttle 

As we swept around the curve, 
When something afar in the shadow, 

Struck fire through every nerve. 
I sounded the brakes, and crashing 

The reverse lever down in dismay, 
Groaning to Heaven — eighty paces 

Ahead was the child at its play ! 

One instant — one, awful and only, 
The world flew round in my brain, 

And I smote my hand hard on my forehead 
To keep back the terrible pain ; 
—11 



162 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

The train I thought flying forever, 

With mad irresistible roll. 
While the cries of the dying, the night-wind 

Swept into my shuddering soul. 

Then I stood on the front of the engine — 

How I got there I never could tell — 
My feet planted down on the cross-bar, 

Where the cow-catcher slopes to the rail, 
One hand firmly locked on the coupler, 

And one held out in the night, [measured 
While my eye guaged the distance and 

The speed of our slackening flight. 

My mind, thank the Lord! it was steady; 

I saw the curls of her hair, 
And the face that, turning in wonder, 

Was lit by the deadly glare. 
I know little more — but I heard it — 

The groan of the anguished wheels, 
And remember thinking — the engine 

In agony trembles and reels. 

One rod ! To the day of my dying 

I shall think the old engine reared back, 
And as it recoiled, with a shudder 

I swept my hand over the track ; 
Then darkness fell over my eyelids, 

But I heard the surge of the train, 
And the poor old engine creaking, 

As racked by a deadly pain. 

They found us, they said, on the gravel, 
My fingers enmeshed in her hair, 

And she on my bosom a-climbing, 
To nestle securely there. 



SELECTIONS. 163 

We are not much given to crying — 

We men that run on the road — 
But that night, they said, there were faces, 

With tears on them, lifted to God. 

For years in the eve and the morning 

As I neared the cabin again, 
My hand on the lever pressed downward 

And slackened the speed of the train. 
When my engine had blown her a greeting, 

She always would come to the door ; 
And her look with a fullness of heaven 

Now blesses me evermore. 



THE SCOTCHMAN'S PRAYER. 

(Scotch dialect.) 

Every one knows that great plainness of speech is character- 
istic of the Scotch people. This is carried even into their devo- 
tions, and many have heard of the Scotchman who, it is said, in 
his prayer "talked to his Maker as if he was his ain herd callant 
[boy]." A Scotchman of this character offered the following 
prayer at family devotions. 

O Lord ! our Lord ! We beseech Thee to hae maircy 
on thy puir sinfu' creeturs noo addressin' Thee in their 
ain shilly-shally way, and deal kindly wi' them. 

For thy maircy's sake, and for the sake o' mair than 
we daur weel name to Thee, hae maircy on oor Rab. 
Ye ken yersel' he is a wild mischievous callant, and 
thinks na mair o' committin' sin than a dog does o' 
lickin' a dish. But put thy hook intil his nose, and 
thy bridle intil his gab, and gar him come back to 
Thee wi' a jairk that he '11 na forget the langest day 
he haas to live. 



164 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

And, Lord! ha' maircy on our Jamie and endue 
hiin wie some spunk or smeddum to induce him to act 
for himsel', for if ye dinna he '11 be but a bancle i' this 
world and a backsitter i' the next. 

Thou hast added ane to oor family. [One of his 
sons had married against his will.] So haas been thy 
will ; it wad niver hae been mine. But if it is of Thee, 
do Thou bless the connection ; but if the puir fule hae 
done it out o' carnal desire and against a' reason and 
credit, may the cauld rain o' advarsity settle on his 
habitation. 

And, Lord! hae maircy on our neighbors, par- 
tikalarly them that haas disagreed wie us, and if ye 
canna be wie us in this dissension, O Lord, dinna be 
wie them, for the whale clan would rejoice at the 
downfa' of thy servants noo addressin' Thee. 

Mak' us iver to prosper, and we will always love 
Thee. Amen. 



FOR A' THAT, AND A' THAT. 
(Scotch dialect.) 

Is there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head, and a' that ? 
The coward-slave, we pass him by ; 

We dare be poor for a' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Our toils obscure, and a' that: 
The rank is but the guinea's stamp — 

The man's the gowd for a' that. 

What though on namely fare we dine, 
Wear hodden-gray, and a' that; 

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 
A man 's a man for a' that ! 



SELECTIONS. 165 

For a' that, and a' that, 

Their tinsel show, and a' that, 

The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 
Is king o' men for a' that. 

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, 

Wha struts, and stares, and a' that; 
Though hundreds worship at his word, 

He 's but a coof for a' that; 
For a' that, and a' that, 

His riband, star, and a' that, 
The man of independent mind, 

He looks and laughs at a' that. 

A prince can make a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a' that; 
But an honest man 's aboon his might — 

Guid faith, he mauna fa' that! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Their dignities, and a' that, 
The pith o' sense and pride o' worth 

Are higher ranks than a' that. 

Then let us pray, that come it may, — 

As come it will, for a' that, — 
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, 

May bear the gree, and a' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

It 's coming yet, for a' that, 
That man to man, the warld o'er, 

Shall brothers be for a' that. 

— Robert Burns. 

Note. — This fine sentence, by Prof. Wilson, characterizes the 
genius of the preceding piece. " The poor man," he says, " as he 
speaks of Eobert Burns, always holds up his head and regards 
you with an elated look." 



166 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

(Scotch dialect.) 

"I wad hae kent it, Mr. North, on the tower o' 
Babel, on the day o' the great hubbub. I think Soc- 
rates maun hae had just sic a voice : ye canna weel 
ca 't sweet, for it is ower intellectual for that; ye 
canna ca 't saft, for even in its laigh notes there 's a 
sort o' birr, a sort o' dirl that betokens power; ye 
canna ca 't hairsh, for angry as ye may be at times, 
it 's ay in tune frae the fineness o' your ear for music ; 
ye canna ca 't sherp, for it 's ay sae nat'ral ; and fiett 
it cud never be, gin you were .even gi'en ower by the 
doctors. It 's maist the only voice I ever heard, that 
I can say is at ance persuawsive and commanding — 
you micht fear 't, but you maun love't; and there's 
no voice in all his Majesty's dominions better framed 
by nature to hold communion with friend or foe." 



SETTING A HEN. 

(Dutch dialect.) 

Meester Verris — I see dot mosd efferpoty wrides some- 
ding for de shicken bapers nowtays, and I tought praps 
meppe I can do dot too, as I wride all apout vat dook 
blace mit me lasht summer ; you know — oder of you 
dond know, den I dells you — dot Katrina (dot is mine 
vrow) und me, ve keep some shickens for a long dime 
ago, und von tay she sait to me, "Sockery," (dot is 
mein name,) " vy dond you put some of de aigs under 
dot olt plue hen shickens ? I dinks she vants to sait." 
"Veil," I sait, "meppe I guess I vill;" so I bicked 
out some uf de best aigs und dook urn oud do de parn 
fere de olt hen make her nesht in de side of de hay- 
mow, poud five six veet up. Now, you see, I nefer was 



SELECTIONS. 167 

ferry big up and town, but I vos putty pig all de vay 
around in de mittle, so I koodn't reach up dill I vent 
and get a parrel do shtant on ; veil, I klimet on de par- 
rel, und ven my hed rise up by de nesht, dot olt hen 
gif me such a bick dot my nose runs all ofer my face 
mit plood, und ven I todge pack dot plasted olt parrel 
he preak, und I vent town kershlam ; I didn't tink I 
kood go insite a parrel before, put dere I vos, und I fit 
so dite dot I koodn't get me oud efferway; my fest vas 
bushed vay up unter my armholes. Ven I fount I 
vos dite shtuck, I holler "Katrina! Katrina!" und 
ven she koom and see me shtuck in de parrel up to my 
armholes, mit my face all plood and aigs, she shust lait 
town on de hay und laft und laft, till I got so mat I 
sait, " Vot you lay dere und laf like a olt vool, eh ? vy 
dond you koom bull me out ? ' ' und she set up und 
sait, " Oh, vipe off your chin, und bull your fest town ; " 
den she lait back und laft like she vood shblit herself 
more as ever. Mat as I vas I t ought to myself, Katrina, 
she sbeak English pooty goot, but I only sait, mit my 
my greatest dignitude, ' k Katrina, vill you bull me oud 
dis parrel ? " und she see dot I look booty red, so she 
said, " Of course I vill, Sockery ;" den she lait me und 
de parrel town on our site, und I dook holt de door sill, 
und Katrina she bull on de parrel, but de first bull she 
mate I yellet. ' k Donner und blitzen ! shtop dat ; dere is 
nails in de* parrel ! ' ' You see de nails bent town ven I 
vent in, but ven I koom oud dey schticks in me all de 
vay rount. Veil, to make a short shtory long, I told 
Katrina to go und dell naypor Hausman to pring a saw 
und saw me dis parrel off; veil, he koom, und he like 
to shblit himself mit laf too, but he roll me ofer und 
saw de parrel all de vay around off, und I get up mit 
half a parrel around my vaist ; den Katrina she say, 



168 NORMAL INSTITUTE READER. 

" Sockery, vait a little till I get a battern of dot new 
oferskirt you haf on," but I didn't say a vort. I shust 
got a nife oud und vittle de hoops off und shling dot 
confountet olt parrel in de voot-pile. 

Pimeby ven I koom in de house Katrina she sait, so 
soft like, " Sockery, dond you goin' to but some aigs 
under dot olt plue hen?" Den I sait, in my deepest 
woice, " Katrina, uf you effer say dot to me again, I'll 
get a pill of wriding from de lawyer from you," und I 
dell you, she didn't say dot any more. Veil, Mr. Ver- 
ris, ven I step on a parrel now, I dond step on it, — I 
git a pox. 



TALES OF THE TRAIL. 



A PART OF THE HISTORY OF THE WEST. 



By COL. HENRY INMAN, 

Author of "The Old Santa Fe Trail," "Salt Lake Trail." Late Assistant' 
Quartermaster of the United States Army. 



Illustrated by Cunningham. Containing some of the author's best 
sketches. 

Short stories of Western life — Indian tales and Trail tales by one of 
the actors of the historical yesterday. 

Personal recollections of such men as Custer, Sheridan, Forsythe, Kit 
Carson, etc. 

Cloth, $1.00, prepaid. 




WINNING ORATIONS. 

Compiled by CHARLES EDGAR PRATHER. 

A Souvenir of the inter-State Oratorical association. 

THE PRIZE WINNERS — 
THEIR EFFORTS AND PORTRAITS. 

The history of an ideal. Contains all the prize orations delivered since 
the organization of the Inter-State Oratorical Association. 

Cloth, $1.25. 



I 



Crane & Company, Topeka. 



THE STORY OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 



By FRANK W. BLACKMAR, Ph.D., 

Professor of History and Sociology in the Kansas University. 

A Brief History of Civilization.' An Elementary Treatise on the His- 
tory of Civilization, designed for a brief survey of the whole field. 

The work is divided into five parts: 

i. The Nature of Civilization. 3. The Dawn of Civilization. 

2. The First Steps of Progress. 4. Western Civilization. 
5. Modern Progress. 

An earnest demand for a closer study of social progress and societ; 
relations is the reason for the work. 

375 pages. Cloth, $1.00, prepaid. 



A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN SCHOOL 
SUPERVISION AND MAINTENANCE. 



NATIONAL AND STATE. 
By HENRY C. FELLOW, Ph. D. 



*'■ 



The purpose of the work is to give in concise form, suited to class use 
a comprehensive comparison of the modes of school supervision, require- 
ments of the teaching forces, and provisions for maintenance of the school 
systems of the different States. 

A valuable book for the class or for reference. H 

Cloth, $l.O0, postpaid. 



Crane & Company, Topeka. 



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